


Bonds of Honor

by ObsidianJade



Series: Duty and Honor [4]
Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-15 11:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16932195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsidianJade/pseuds/ObsidianJade
Summary: Just a few notes before we start; while this is a sequel to RDBH, it is not the same story.  While it maintains many of the same romantic and humorous undertones throughout, there will be darker drama and angst present.  There's also a small pack of OC’s, although they play nicely for the most partYou’ll be seeing more of the Karakura Gang in this story, and more pairings (many of them het) making an appearance, although, no fear, all couples from RDBH will definitely be in the spotlight as well.The chapters will alternate back and forth between the Living World and the Soul Society; it starts as a one-to-one back and forth, although the ratio gets skewed in later chapters.Disclaimer:  I do not own Bleach and make no monetary gain from the writing or publishing of this work.  Kubo-sama is a god and I am merely playing in his world.





	1. Beginning Anew

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few notes before we start; while this is a sequel to RDBH, it is not the same story. While it maintains many of the same romantic and humorous undertones throughout, there will be darker drama and angst present. There's also a small pack of OC’s, although they play nicely for the most part 
> 
> You’ll be seeing more of the Karakura Gang in this story, and more pairings (many of them het) making an appearance, although, no fear, all couples from RDBH will definitely be in the spotlight as well. 
> 
> The chapters will alternate back and forth between the Living World and the Soul Society; it starts as a one-to-one back and forth, although the ratio gets skewed in later chapters. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach and make no monetary gain from the writing or publishing of this work. Kubo-sama is a god and I am merely playing in his world.

“Attend your son’s wedding? Why in the three worlds would I wish to do something as abysmally foolish as that?”

Sprawled as obnoxiously as possible in the hard wooden chair on the opposite side of the immense desk, Kurosaki Isshin never let the broad smile slip from his face. “Because, like it or not, Ryuuken, your son and my son are friends, and that makes you family.”

“Souken must be rolling in his grave,” the silver-haired Quincy shot back, raising his head so that the flare of light on the lenses of his glasses masked his eyes.

“On the contrary,” chuckled Isshin, “your father was always wiser than you. I would think he’d praise you for making an overture of peace.”

“All the more reason to decline your absurdly foolish offer, Isshin,” Ryuuken shot back. “Rarely did I agree with anything my father supported.”

“Including your own son, sadly enough,” Isshin answered, grunting slightly as he rolled out of the chair. 

Thin silver eyebrows arched. “Has Ichigo forgiven you yet, for lying to him his entire life?” 

“Shut up, Ryuuken,” came the weary sigh. “The wedding’s in a week, two o’clock. We’re holding it at Urahara’s. Byakuya kicked up a fuss, of course, so they’re having a second ceremony in Seireitei proper to appease the Kuchiki Clan, but the real wedding’s being held here, so that everyone can attend.” 

“Including most of the senior officers of the Gotei, I assume? It sounds like a marvelous opportunity for an ambush,” Ryuuken remarked dryly, reaching for one of the budget folders on the far side of his desk. “You may leave, Isshin, and take your idiotic notions of peace between our people with you.”

Isshin rolled his eyes in response. “We still on for drinks this Friday?”

“We drink together every Friday, barring emergencies. Why should this one be any different?”

“Just checking,” came the laughing reply. “And you know, our sons do pretty well at the whole Shinigami-Quincy peace thing...”

_______________________________________________________________________

_“Getsuga Tenshou!”_

Ishida Uryuu leaped, barely managing to dodge the massive arc of red-black power that shattered the ground where he had been crouched only a split-second before. A few fragments of shattered rock raked over him, and he hissed, thankful for the white leather gloves he’d taken to wearing to protect his hands. Hitting the rocky, dusty ground, he grunted and rolled with the impact, using the momentum to spring back to his feet.

“You all right there, Ishida?”

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Uryuu glowered upwards to the top the oversized lump of rock where Ichigo stood, Zangetsu’s massive blade resting over his shoulder and a casual smirk on his face. 

Turning up his nose with a sniff, the young Quincy began slapping the dust off of his once-pristine outfit, all the while silently cursing Quincy tradition for the garments being white. Purity was all well and good, but it was damned hard to keep white _pure_. “I don’t suppose the concept of _aiming_ actually exists in your vocabulary, Kurosaki...” 

“Hey, it missed you!”

“Because I dodged, you imbecile! You shot that right at my head!”

“I know what your reflexes are, Ishida. We’ve fought together enough.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just arbitrarily assume I’m going to tumble out of the way in time to avoid your strikes!”

“Yes it -”

“HEY!” 

Momentarily silenced, both boys turned, blinking, to their interruption. 

“If you two are done flirting,” said Arisawa Tatsuki, hands on her hips, while Keigo, Mizuiro, Chad, and Orihime watched, with varying levels of amusement, from the background, “maybe we could all get back to training?”

______________________________________________________________________

Six months after his return from the Soul Society, Ichigo had finally succeeded in getting his life back into some semblance of order. With Chad and Uryuu’s help, he had caught up on the schoolwork he had missed (Kon had done a surprisingly good job of maintaining his grades), begun work at his father’s Clinic to earn a little money (it was the only employment he could think of that didn’t necessitate excuses every time a Hollow appeared), and returned to Seireitei every weekend to check up on Kira, visit with Rukia, and generally escape the real world.

It was then, after his life had managed to gain some semblance of routine - he would never call it ‘normalcy,’ because there was nothing normal about it - he kept his word to begin training the spiritually-aware civilians of Karakura. 

For simplicity’s sake, he’d started with his friends.

___________________________________________________________________

He had called Tatsuki, Mizuiro, and Keigo to Urahara’s shop, sat them down, and explained everything, from Rukia’s arrival and his unexpected empowerment to his Hollowfication, right through the Winter War and his later Captaincy, and every detail in between. 

Although the trio had already known the gist of it all, hearing the facts laid so completely bare before them had been... unsettling. Particularly when Ichigo had told them about his battle with Ulquiorra - _‘You mean you’ve got a homicidal monster living in you_ right now?’ Keigo had squeaked, edging away from the table, until Tatsuki walloped him in the head and Ichigo looked at him, his expression anguished. Keigo had sat back down without another word, apology in his eyes. 

And then Ichigo had told them what he’d told the Seireitei; that he had every intention of training every sane and spiritually-aware person he could lay his hands on in Karakura, so that they could defend themselves and their city from Hollows.

Yamamoto hadn’t been particularly happy with the idea, but Ichigo - guided by Ukitake - had found the records of human civilian deaths due to Hollow activity throughout Karakura in the last twenty years. When he’d informed the Captain’s Council that over two hundred people a year died of Hollow attacks in Karakura alone, more than half of the Captains had thrown their support behind his proposal within minutes.

__________________________________________________________________

It had taken almost six weeks to get them even to the point of focusing and channeling their energy. Ichigo glanced over his three ‘students’ once again - Mizuiro sitting in a full lotus position, enormous headphones over his ears, eyes closed as he hummed along to the music, a teacup-sized ball of power glowing in his hands; Keigo, who was staring at the glowing rock he held with bewilderment on his face; and Tatsuki, who was steadily moving through katas while odd flickers of energy glinted on her arms and hands.

“This is ridiculous,” Ichigo groaned, flopping backwards on the rock and staring upwards at the brightly painted artificial sky. Shinji had been kind enough to permit them the use of the Shoten’s basement for their ‘sessions,’ but Ichigo was about ready to throw in the towel as far as the whole mess was concerned. When faced with a challenge to his own strength, he could rise to meet it, no matter the odds, but instilling that same ability in someone else? It had been one thing with Kira's Shinigami - that was all rote drill work, building off skills the Academy had taught them. Ichigo had no problem being a drill instructor, but teaching was proving difficult.

Especially considering his students. Down below him, Keigo was trying to balance the glowing rock on his nose and failing miserably, yelping every time it fell into his eye, until Mizuiro finally lost his temper and kicked his friend, causing Keigo to shriek loud enough to disrupt Tatsuki’s focus as well. The rock bounced off somewhere, glow fading as it rolled away, and Keigo leapt backwards as Tatsuki swung a punch at him out of sheer frustration. All three of them could sense Ichigo’s disappointment, and it made the air of the basement bitter.

“I’m not cut out for this,” Ichigo sighed, and blinked when a massive shadow eclipsed his light. “Oy, you - oh. Chad.”

“Hey,” the big man grunted, folding his legs to settle beside his friend. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I suck as a teacher,” Ichigo replied absently, watching as Tatsuki began chasing Keigo across the floor. “They’re not making progress.”

“That’s not right,” Chad answered softly, and when Ichigo lifted his head enough to look at his friend, Chad shook his head slightly and elaborated. “They’re not making the progress you made. But they’re not you, Ichigo.”

There was a short silence before one corner of the tight mouth arched up. “Are you telling me I should have a double standard?”

“I’m telling you you’re outside standards,” Chad answered, rising to his feet again. “Tatsuki!”

Surprise at hearing the gentle tiger raise his voice - let alone address her directly - halted Tatsuki in her tracks, wide-eyed. Nodding, Chad jumped down to her, landing easily on the brittle ground. Straightening up, he chased Keigo off with a look, and turned his attention to Tatsuki. 

“Attack me.”

“What?!” Tatsuki squawked back, disbelief raising her voice sharply. “Sado, I’m not going to -”

“Tatsuki,” Chad repeated heavily, and the girl froze, silent. _“Attack me.”_

“If you insist,” came the unsure reply, and within a second the lean body was hurtling at Chad, one foot arcing upwards to connect with his shoulder -

Until Chad caught her by the ankle and flipped her aside like a fly. She hit the ground with a yelp, more startled than hurt, but Keigo and Ichigo both moved forward on instinct, halted before they could take a full step by Chad’s upraised hand. 

“Again,” he ordered simply, watching the girl raise herself up, spitting dust. 

“Like hell,” came the return growl, but Chad simply watched her, eyes impassive behind thick bangs, and Tatsuki snarled softly and charged him again. The results were the same, except she flew farther this time, and the sound of her landing was louder. She didn’t cry out with the impact, but the pained hiss that escaped her when she struggled to her feet was enough to tell them she was hurt.

“Again.”

“Chad, what the hell are you -”

“Be quiet, Ichigo. Tatsuki. _Again.”_

This time, when she charged at him, there was a spark of real fury in her eyes.

And when her kick connected, it was Chad that went flying backwards - twenty feet backwards, slamming into one of the rock cliffs that dotted the training grounds with enough force to drive him into it, shattering the rock around him.

The stunned silence of the basement was broken only by the sound of shifting stone, broken fragments of the sandy rock clattering down through the dust.

“Chad!” Ichigo shouted, leaping from his perch and rushing past a stunned Tatsuki, who was staring at the shattered rock with disbelieving horror. _“Chad!”_

A deep-chested cough answered him, and the dust finally settled enough for them to see Chad, eyes wide under the fringe of his dark hair, carefully extracting himself from the fragmented remains of the rock. The shield on his right arm, raised a split-second before Tatsuki’s kick struck, had a crack running the entire length of it. 

Glancing down at the crack, he grunted softly and ran the fingers of his left hand slowly across the fracture, reweaving the threads of energy that formed the shield. Then, glancing up at Tatsuki, he said simply, “Good. Again.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Hours later, when Tatsuki had collapsed, panting, on the dusty ground and refused to move, Chad nodded slightly and finally let the others - Orihime, amazed but worried, and Keigo and Mizuiro, simply amazed - swarm the girl with questions as he walked a short ways away to talk to Ichigo.

“How did you do that?” Ichigo demanded, as soon as they were out of earshot of the others. “Six weeks I’ve been trying to get anything out of them, and it takes you two hours?”

“Simple,” Chad answered, rubbing his arm absently. “I recognized her powers.”

Ichigo blinked in confusion. “What do you... recognized? Her abilities aren’t anything like yours.”

“Not mine,” Chad corrected. “Yoroichi’s.”

“You mean Shunko?” The tone bordered on incredulity, which was not surprising. Rubbing his arm again - even through his shield, Tatsuki’s empowered kicks were painful - Chad nodded in response.

“Like Shunko. She doesn’t have Yoroichi’s experience, so she has to get angry to release it. It’ll be easier now.”

“It’s always easier to do something a second time,” Ichigo nodded, his face thoughtful. “Thanks. I probably wouldn’t have gotten that on my own.”

A shrug answered that; Chad never had been comfortable accepting praise, but Ichigo knew him well enough not to take offense.

“So, any thoughts on how to drag out Keigo and Mizuiro’s abilities?”

“Not Mizuiro,” came the slow response, “but Keigo needs to be scared, I think.”

Ichigo snorted faintly. “Well,” he answered dryly, raising one hand to curl his fingers in the air, feeling the dark reiatsu curl around him, “that should be easy enough.”

______________________________________________________________________

Another five months of training had gone by before Ichigo had finally felt comfortable enough to allow his ‘class’ to begin tackling low-level Hollows, and even then only under strict supervision. 

Now, though, two years after his return to the Living World and a full eighteen months into their training, all three had faced and defeated Hollows on their own.

Tatsuki was undoubtedly the best student of the bunch. Her kicks and punches, honed by years of martial arts and enhanced by a curious ability to channel reiatsu - or whatever passed for reiatsu in humans - into the limb to supplement the blow, were punishing enough to cripple or kill minor Hollow in a single hit.

Keigo’s power was a peculiar one; he could channel energy into foreign objects. Small amounts of energy would only make the object in question glow as long as it was being fed energy - the light would dim almost immediately upon his releasing the item or the flow of reiatsu. Charging it to the overloading point, however, would cause the item to literally explode. The ability worked best on stone or metal, which meant that Keigo was now forever carrying around pebbles in his pockets; at least, if he couldn’t steal gintou from the Ishidas. He’d become an expert at dumping power into anything from pebbles to paperclips and throwing them at Hollow before they exploded - he’d even managed to take out a midrange Hollow with a stone the size of his fist and an empty soup can.

Mizuiro’s power was similar to Keigo’s only in that the results were explosive. Mizuiro still had to hum or sing to focus his abilities - an odd quirk that Ichigo just shrugged off after a while. That humming, though, allowed Mizuiro to produce fist-sized, translucent white spheres of energy that produced their own steady glow. Unlike Keigo’s explosive charges, these could be quite safely handled and transported - by anyone, not only Mizuiro - and had been used for emergency lighting in more than one situation. 

At one point, Tatsuki had jokingly referred to the little spheres as ‘the world’s deadliest water balloons,‘ and the comparison was actually quite fitting - although they could be handled safely, if carefully, the spheres exploded with a sharp impact. And despite the diminutive size and appearance, the results were... impressive. 

Although all of them were currently competent and getting better, Ichigo kept the twice-weekly practices in session, working on things like strength and stamina and dodging techniques, since none of the three had any defensive skills to speak of. 

That was, in fact, why Uryuu had originally been dragged along to the practice sessions, three months before. His aim was far more accurate than Ichigo’s, and his spiritual arrows gave excellent incentive to dodge - quickly.

______________________________________________________________

_“If you two are done flirting, maybe we could all get back to training?”_

“Heh,” Ichigo answered, slinging Zangetsu over his back and jumping down to where Uryuu stood, still fuming. “Don’t let Rukia hear you talking like that, Tatsuki.”

“Hear her talking like what?” inquired a familiar voice from the ladder, and Ichigo spun around, his expression startled. 

“Rukia!”

“Who else?” she countered, kicking away from the ladder to drop the last few feet, landing with barely a puff of dust. “Hey, everyone.”

A fractured chorus of cheerful greetings answered her, and Ichigo let a smile cross his face as he strode to her. “I didn’t think you’d get back here for another couple of days. How’s Ukitake?”

“Taichou’s fine, actually,” Rukia replied. “The attack wasn’t serious, and between Unohana’s care and Kyouraku’s mother-henning, he has more help than he needs. Sentarou and Kiyone are doing pretty well without me, too,” she added with a chuckle. 

“Funny, I thought a Lieutenant was supposed to make herself indispensable, not more dispensable,” Ichigo snickered, and earned a smack on the head in response. 

“Being a Lieutenant means ensuring the Squad operates at peak efficiency, whether or not you are actually present,” she shot back, and Ichigo grinned down at her in response.

Being a Lieutenant suited Rukia. The added responsibilities had steadied her, calming her temper and deepening her consideration of her actions. She stood a little taller now - as much confidence as actual added height - her face a little leaner, her movements sure and graceful from the lithe muscle her training had added. When she spoke, even casually, there was a strength in her voice that had not been there before she’d assumed the rank two years ago. 

“Besides, I’m sure I’ll be indisposed for a while after our wedding,” Rukia added for Ichigo’s ears alone. It delighted her no end that her fiance - now nearly twenty and one of the most respected warriors of the Seireitei - still blushed at the slightest innuendo. 

Leaning back a little, Rukia glanced around Ichigo’s shoulder to meet Tatsuki’s eyes. “And what was it you were saying that I shouldn’t have heard?”

Tatsuki laughed in response, pulling a water bottle off her belt and tipping a bit of it over her head before drinking. “I told him to stop flirting with Ishida so that we could all get back to work,” she grinned, then threw the bottle at Ichigo’s head. 

He caught it without missing a beat and set it down at the bottom of the ladder, where it would be at least moderately out of harm’s way once the heavy combat started. 

Rukia, for her part, laughed softly in response. “A week to go until our wedding, and my fiance is flirting with a man? How typical,” she grinned, drawing Sode no Shirayuki with a practiced sweep of her arm. “I guess I’ll have to teach him a lesson, then.”

Zangetsu flashed in the artificial light as Ichigo swung the massive blade forward. “Let’s go, then, _Sensei.”_

Tatsuki barked a laugh as the the pair of them vanished into Shunpo, headed for a farther spot in the cavern where their fight wouldn’t get anyone else burned, blasted, or flash-frozen. Turning back to the group, she nodded to Chad, who returned the gesture silently and stepped forward.   
___________________________________________________________________

Over an hour later, the group stumbled back together, every one of them dusty, bruised, and positively beaming.

“All right, everyone,” said Ichigo, grinning himself as he sealed Zangetsu with a thought, sheathing the elegant katana smoothly at his hip. His hand lingered for a moment on the hilt, the patterned black-and-white wrapping marking the blade’s continued uniqueness. “You already know training’s suspended through next week - Mashiro said she can’t decorate the shop with us blowing things up down here,” he continued, ignoring the badly-muffled snickers of the group. 

Truth be told, Ichigo had his doubts about allowing the scatterbrained Vizored to decorate for his wedding _at all_ , but she had been insistent. 

Byakuya, upon learning of it, had begun sending a steady stream of servants back and forth through the Kuchiki family’s personal Senkaimon, all of whom were old enough to remember Mashiro and experienced enough to deal with her help.

Even with the Kuchiki servants overseeing the food, decorations, and attire, though, Ichigo couldn’t shake a niggling feeling of concern about the wedding. Then again, given the guest list, perhaps he should have been more worried...   
_____________________________________________________________

“A little to the left.... to the _left...._ to your other left, dumbass! Whoops, wait, my bad. My left, your right.”

Kensei glowered down from the top of the stepladder he was rather precariously balanced on, eyes narrowed as they focused on the blond Visored leader. Slowly, he hefted the hammer in his hand, and Shinji scrambled backwards, both hands raised in surrender. 

“Honest mistake, Kensei, really!”

“ ‘course it was,” Ichimaru Gin grinned sarcastically, slipping fluidly around the ladder with a tray of drinks in his hands. “Thirsty?” 

“No,” Shinji answered, as a scowling Kensei went back to tacking streamers to the exposed beams of the ceiling. “But check on Hachi and Tessai, they’re outside trying to maintain the reiatsu shields. And Isshin’s in the front room, and I guarantee you that everyone with him needs a drink.”

“Ain’ it the truth,” Gin answered, eyes rolling behind half-closed lids. Swooping the tray upwards, he swept it easily over Mashiro’s head as the green-haired girl burst through the doorway, shouting something about fish cakes, and Kensei whacked himself in the thumb with the hammer and swore loud enough to make her jump.

“What the hell is it now, Kuna?” he demanded irritably, shaking his hand sharply in an attempt to relive the throbbing pain in his thumb. 

“All the fish cakes for the buffet smell funny!” the girl wailed back, pulling at her hair, and Kensei rolled his eyes in disgust.

“Of course they smell funny, you idiot. They’re fish!”

Shaking his head, Shinji turned towards the door and called sharply, “Oy, Yoroichi!”

There was a few second’s pause before the dark head popped around the edge of the screen, dark-purple hair crowned with a delicate fall of silk flowers. “You called?”

“Yeah,” Shinji answered sourly. “You’re a cat - anything wrong with the fishcakes?”

“Not at all,” she answered, reply edging out through a tight smile, thumb sweeping an errant crumb from the corner of her mouth. “In fact, they’re delicious. Was that all?”

“For the minute, yeah,” Shinji nodded, attention already elsewhere, as Mashiro sulked her way back out of the room and Kensei turned his attention back to the streamer he’d been working on, hammering the tacks into place with a few precise strokes.

“There!” he exclaimed a minute later. “Done! Finally...” 

Just as he spoke, however, the burst of reiatsu from the opening Senkaimon rippled through the room, tearing the crepe paper streamers from their moorings and sending them fluttering through the air.

Disbelieving, Kensei at the top of the ladder for a long moment, watching as the work of the past two hours drifted silently to the ground. Letting out a wordless yell of frustration, he hurled the hammer he still held at the two figures emerging from the Senkaimon, leaped down from the ladder, and stormed from the room. Snickering an apology, Shinji ducked out after him.

“Well, that was a hell of a welcome,” Abarai Renji remarked offhandedly, glancing down at the hammer he’d snatched out of its midair flight, only inches from colliding with his partner’s head.

“Indeed,” Byakuya countered dryly, putting a hand on Renji’s elbow to guide the other man forward, out of the way of the Senkaimon. “I would not suggest returning it in the same manner.”

“If I hadn’t grabbed it, you certainly would,” Renji shot back, setting the hammer on top of the ladder for safekeeping.

“Perhaps,” Byakuya replied levelly, a faint smile touching his mouth as he turned to watch the Senkaimon disgorge Kira and Shuuhei, quickly followed by Ukitake, Kyouraku, and Ise Nanao. “But I never had any doubts you would catch it.”

___________________________________________________________________

She couldn’t recognize the figure in the mirror.

The woman gazing back at her was beautiful, her face powdered white and lips painted crimson, creating an image befitting the pure, pale white of the shiromuku kimono that garbed her. A short distance away, the brilliant crimson and gold of her uchikake - an overkimono that she would wear at the reception after the ceremony - seemed to gleam against the off-white wall it was hung against.

“Rukia-sama?” 

She didn’t jump - really, she didn’t, even if Riko’s voice had been completely unexpected. The older woman said nothing about the undignified response, however, merely smiling and directing a low bow in Rukia’s direction. “Rukia-sama, the remaining guests have arrived.”

“And Ichigo?” Rukia asked, gathering the silken skirts of her kimono carefully as she turned to face the woman. 

“Kurosaki-sama is outside, I believe discussing the shield with Hachigen-san and Tessai-san.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Rukia answered, sighing softly as she glanced back at the mirror again. Her hair was so done up with combs and ornaments that she could barely hold her head up; not that anyone would see them, of course, as she was expected to wear the enormous white wataboshi hood, a traditional headpiece that was supposed to conceal her face from everyone but her groom. “After all, we can’t have Hollows attacking us on our wedding day.”

“I think it would be kinda par for the course, though, don’t you?” countered a rough voice that was certainly not Riko’s, and Rukia spun away from the mirror with a cry of delight. 

“Renji!”

“Well, of course,” the redhead huffed, staggering a half-step backwards as Rukia slammed into his midsection, wrapping her arms around him in a crushing hug. “Who were you expecting, Aizen?”

“That’s not funny, you bastard,” Rukia snapped, laughing despite herself, as she smacked her oldest friend on the shoulder, ignoring his laughter as she slowly released him and stepped back, spreading her arms slightly so that he could see all of her outfit. “How do I look?”

“Almost as pretty as your brother,” Renji grinned back, and quickly ducked backwards to avoid the delicate fist flying at his head. 

“Ass. I’m trying to be serious!” 

“Don’t,” Renji advised her, and caught her fist in his hand when she swung it again. “Rukia, you look.... amazin’.” Garnet eyes stared down at her for a moment longer, softening as he held her gaze. “Ichigo’s a good guy, Rukia, an’ he’s damned lucky t’ have you. He’ll do right by you, so try not to be too hard on him, ‘kay?”

“I’ll try,” came the dubious response, and Renji barked a laugh as he looked at her. 

“Hell, Rukia,” he murmured a moment later, shaking his head slowly as he gazed down at the girl who had been his sister before he’d even known what family was. “Why is it that every time I catch up to you, it’s just in time to lose you again?”

She blinked up at him, confused for the briefest of moments, before the words struck home. Losing her to Byakuya’s adoption. Losing her to the Living World, to the Sokyouku and her execution, and now, when they were truly able to call one another ‘family,’ she would be leaving once again. 

She smiled as she took one of his big hands in both of hers, but her eyes were suspiciously bright, and her grip on his hand was almost painful. “You don’t need me, Renji,” she said gently, her voice suspiciously thick as she spoke. “You never did - you were always the one that kept us safe and fed and protected. But you’ve got Nii-sama now, and you’re not losing me - you’re gaining a brother-in-law.”

“And his whole, crazy family,” Renji added with a mock grimace as Isshin began loudly berating Urahara for gods-knew-what. Karin bellowed at the both of them to shut up, and then - if the yelps were any indication - enforced her demand with her fists.

“Our dreams come true,” Rukia laughed wetly, and tugged on the shoulder of his haori, pulling him down enough for her to kiss him on the cheek. 

Barking a laugh, Renji pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to her; cautious of her heavy makeup, Rukia dabbed her eyes dry before folding the square of linen up and tucking it into her own sleeve. “We... really have made it, haven’t we?” she laughed, tears and amazement still thick in her voice. “Half a century ago we were standing on a hill in Inuzuri, and now we’re both...” _Nobles. Ranking officers. Married._

“Yeah,” Renji grinned, the unsaid words clear to him. “We made it. Now finish gettin’ dressed, already. Ichigo’s waitin’ for ya.”

And Rukia laughed and cried all at once, smiling more broadly than Renji had ever seen, and spun back to the hands of her attendants to finish preparations while Renji slipped silently back out the door.

Byakuya was standing in the hallway just outside of her room, statue-still and silent, and he looked perfectly composed until one looked close enough to see the faintly downturned edges of his mouth, the weight in his eyes. Without hesitating, Renji took the few short steps that put him beside the man, wrapping his hand around Byakuya’s cool one.

“You okay?”

“I am well enough,” Byakuya replied softly, after a moment. “She is happy. That is what matters.”

Laughing under his breath, Renji wrapped his free arm around Byakuya’s slim shoulders and gently but insistently pulled the man against his chest. Byakuya - never one for a public display - tensed slightly, resisting the pull, but when Renji softly maintained the pressure against his shoulders, he eventually allowed himself to be guided forward, bending his head to rest it against Renji’s shoulder. 

“Givin‘ someone up is never easy,” Renji said softly, and felt the warmth of Byakuya’s breath against his collarbone as the other man huffed in response.

“It is not,” came the faintly muffled reply, and Byakuya raised his head again, stepping back slightly so that he could meet Renji’s eyes. “But as I said, she is happy. And who am I to deny my sister the happiness that I have already found?”


	2. Secrets of Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: For this chapter, lots of allusions to underage sexual situations, suggestions of alcoholism, minor panic attack. 
> 
> Rei: Japanese woman’s name, in this case meaning ‘nothing’ or ‘zero.’  
> ‘obaa-san’ - traditional honorific meaning ‘grandmother,’ although this is occasionally also applied to elderly women of no relation. (Ichigo is known to call Yamamoto ‘jii-san,’ or ‘Gramps,’ in the same manner that Kyouraku calls him ‘Yama-jii,’ roughly ‘Old Yama.’ A more polite form would be ojii-san, meaning ‘grandfather.’ Dropping the ‘o’ eliminates a significant portion of the respect involved in the term.)

Matsumoto was drunk.

_Very_ drunk, in fact, which was rather unusual, given that it was only lunchtime. While his wayward Lieutenant often spent her workdays in varying shades of ‘tipsy,’ she usually waited for the workday to end before attempting to thoroughly drown her problems in the bottom of a bottle. 

It was, therefore, her Captain’s regrettable duty to find out why she was seeking the solace of sake hours earlier than usual.

“ ‘s b’cause... b’cause Gin is a bat rastard,” she informed him gravely, when he finally grew fed up enough to ask. Her hair was tumbled across her face; she flipped it back out of her already-bloodshot eyes with an absent wave of her hand that knocked over one of the empty bottles littering her desk.

“I see,” Hitsugaya answered, watching, carefully blank-faced, as the bottle rolled across the paper-littered surface of the desk, smearing more than one critical document, before toppling over the edge and plummeting to the floor. It was saved from smashing only by landing on a large pile of paperwork that Matsumoto had knocked over an hour earlier, littering the floor beside her desk. “Is this observation a result of any particular action, or just a generalization?”

Drink-muddled blue eyes blinked back at him, working through the clearly overcomplicated question for a long moment, before comprehension dawned. “He was at the Twelfth,” came the very slow, very carefully-enunciated reply. “An’ Shuuhei was there. An’ he told Kira that Gin said to say ‘hi’ to him, but he never said anything t’ me,” she continued morosely, before blinking twice, staring at him out of glazed eyes. “He likes him, you know,” she added, with an air of imparting a great secret of the universe. 

It was a testament to the unfortunate amount of experience Hitsugaya possessed in Matsumoto-logic that he had no difficulty in distilling the drunken rambling into a semi-coherent whole. 

“Gin is a rat bastard because he likes Kira and didn’t ask Shuuhei to say hello to you?”

“Yes!” came the triumphant yelp, and Matsumoto attempted to slap one hand on the top of her desk for emphasis, but, given that she had shifted her chair rather far to the side, managed to miss the desk entirely and nearly topple out of her seat as a result. There was a long pause while she reoriented herself, during which Hitsugaya sighed softly and went back to his paperwork. 

When she’d managed to return herself to the intended location at her desk, Matsumoto narrowed her eyes slightly and squinted across the office at her superior, head weaving slightly as she did so. 

“D’ you think that Gin’s a, uhm, a rat bastard too, Captain?”

“Of course,” Hitsugaya answered steadily, frowning when the head of his brush glanced off the rim of his ink disk, sending a fine spray of ink across the top of his desk. “He hurt the people he’d sworn to protect. That doesn’t give him a particularly high standing in my books.”

“Mmhm. You’re not making fun of me, are you, Captain?” She was listing sideways in her chair; frowning in concentration, she managed to prop herself up on one elbow, staring at him expectantly.

“No, Matsumoto,” he sighed back, mopping up the scattered ink droplets. “I don’t find this funny at all.”

Apparently satisfied, Matsumoto took another drink.  
____________________________________________________________

When she passed out on the couch half an hour later, he carefully covered her with a blanket, made sure there was a wastebasket and a glass of water within her reach, and headed to the Eighth to threaten Kyouraku with a frosty fate if the man did not stop supplying Matsumoto’s alcohol habit.  
___________________________________________________________

When Matsumoto woke up again, an hour after sundown, she utilized both the wastebasket and the water for the purpose her Captain had intended, downed another bottle of sake without blinking, and stumbled out of the barracks, destined for Rukongai.

__________________________________________________________________

His haori hanging safely in his wardrobe, Hitsugaya silently pulled the charcoal-colored cloak tighter around his shoulders, the hood up to disguise his distinctive hair. His reiatsu was wrapped tighter around him than the fabric of the cloak; he had no desire to be detected tonight.

Hyorinmaru, blade still secure upon his master’s back, shifted restlessly within the young Captain’s mind.

_“Are you certain this is wise?”_ the ancient dragon rumbled, and Hitsugaya suppressed the urge to sigh as he slipped out around his Division’s night guards, silent as a fleeting shadow. 

_“Probably not,”_ he answered silently, darting off the path and into the shadow of a bush as a group of unseateds from the Ninth meandered by, talking too loudly about a recently-rebuilt bar out in Rukongai’s thirty-fourth District. Once they were past, he carefully extricated himself from the his meager shelter - occasionally, there were advantages to being as small as he was - and darted out to the grassy verge. He couldn’t use Shunpo - the use of reiatsu would be too easy for someone to detect - but even running he was as fast as the winter winds, and Matsumoto, drunk as she still was, moved slowly tonight. It didn’t take him long to catch sight of her, meandering her way through the twining maze of streets that lead through the better districts. 

It took almost two hours before Matsumoto finally stopped in front of a - comparatively, at least - tidy and sound house deep in the twenty-third. The walk, and the time, had at least taken the edge off of her intoxication, and she managed to stand relatively straight at the doorway as she knocked. 

The old woman who answered the door had a pinched, unpleasant face that seemed at odds with her clearly overfed body, crammed into a black yukata decorated with biliously pink flowers. Hitsugaya - himself ensconced less than happily halfway up a tree at the far edge of the clearing where the building resided - was too far away to pick out smaller details than that, or catch the voices of the pair when they spoke. 

As soon as she opened the door to Matsumoto, though, the old woman leaned back into the house to shout for something, apparently angering Matsumoto in the process; even from this distance, he could see her shoulders tighten, the angry clench of her fists and toss of her head. 

The anger vanished, though, when a second figure, small, thin and dark-haired, garbed in a plain brown yukata, appeared in the doorway next to the old woman. Instantly, Matsumoto’s shoulders unknotted, and, her entire form virtually radiating joy, Matsumoto stepped forward and embraced the newcomer. When she pulled back a second later, Matsumoto leaned forward, setting her hands on the figure’s shoulders, clearly questioning something. When she received only a nod in response, she shook her head, clearly dissatisfied, and turned away. 

Unhesitatingly, the other followed after her, leaving the old woman alone in the doorway. She sneered after them for a brief moment, then slammed the door, cutting off the glare of yellow lantern-light from within. 

Without the harsh backlight, it was easier for Hitsugaya’s dark-sharp eyes to make out the details of Matsumoto’s companion; a girl, he realized, as the pair of them walked across a well-worn path, moving diagonally away from the house and somewhat closer to the tree he was obscured in. 

She had to be close to Hitsugaya’s own age - within a decade or two either way, he decided, narrowing his eyes as the pair passed close by ‘his’ tree. The threadbare yukata was wrapped tight around a body that was a few shades too thin to be called healthy, but the girl moved steadily in Matsumoto’s wake, her strides confident on the packed-dirt path. 

Hitsugaya waited long enough for the pair to get to the limits of his vision, then pulled his reiatsu and his cloak tighter still, slipped down from his tree, and followed. 

_______________________________________________________________________

It took only a few minutes of walking along the narrow, well-trodden path for Matsumoto and her little shadow to reach their destination; a small, grassy clearing, sheltered by a dense ring of thorn-laden bushes on the ground and a ring of shadowing trees above them. 

Without any particular desire to be prickled to bits, Hitsugaya took to the trees once again, finding one with a broad branch twice head-hight off the ground, and stretched out along the branch, keeping himself obscured behind a large clump of leaves. From that vantage point, he could see the entire clearing with minimal difficulty, but wasn’t likely to be spotted by his bleary-eyed Lieutenant.

Matsumoto, for her part, stopped at the edge of the path where it entered the clearing and knelt down in front of a cairn of rocks, carefully extracting.... lanterns? 

Yes, Hitsugaya realized, lanterns. Four of them, to be more exact, all of which she lit with a careful kidou burst - a very careful kidou burst, given how intoxicated she still must have been and how little force was actually required to light a well-filled storm lantern. 

Without a word exchanged between them, the girl calmly picked up two of the now-burning lanterns, and crossed the clearing to place them carefully on a pair of small boulders, spaced at roughly equal distances across the side of the clearing. Matsumoto did the same with the other pair of lanterns, and between the four of them, the small clearing proved to be quite well-lit. 

If you had asked Hitsugaya his predominant emotion at that point, the answer would have been ‘confusion.’ For one thing, Matsumoto - who was quite happy to drown herself and anything resembling her responsibilities in the office under a flood of rice wine during the day - was in a field in Rukongai at damn near the middle of the night, dutifully attending to what appeared to be a standing appointment with the thin-faced girl.

His confusion doubled, however, when Matsumoto crossed to a gnarled tree that sat like a brooding vulture over the livelier brambles ringing the clearing. Without hesitating, she slid one hand into the twisted hollow at the center of the tree, then carefully withdrew... a bokken?

Blinking in utter disbelief, Hitsugaya watched as a the wooden blade was tossed to the girl - she caught it single-handed - and a second one extracted from the center of the twisted tree. 

Weapon steady in her hand, Matsumoto turned, strode steadily back to the center of the clearing, and stopped facing the girl, raising her blade in a kendo salute. The gesture was returned automatically, thin hands tightening on the wrapped wooden hilt. 

“Defend,” Matsumoto said simply, and lunged forward.

Eyes narrowing, Hitsugaya watched the blades collide.   
______________________________________________________________________

At ten-thirty the next morning, Hitsugaya raised his head at the sound of the office door sliding open, his mouth thinning as his Lieutenant tried to slip in without being noticed. Inconspicuous, however, she was not, particularly when entering her workplace two and a half hours late.

_“Matsumoto!"_

“Yeek!” Jumping enough to risk accidental exposure, she clamped both arms over her chest, hands at her shoulders and elbows pressed against her sides. “Captain, don’t scare me like that!”

“How would you like me to scare you, Matsumoto?” came the return growl, and she hesitated, unsure whether her Captain was joking or not. 

Setting his brush down, Hitsugaya shoved the paper he’d been working on aside and leveled his fiercest glare on the woman. “Matsumoto, tell me, in your own words, what you did while you were on duty yesterday.”

“While I was... on duty, Captain? Why do you ask?”

“An exemplary Lieutenant, Matsumoto, will arrive on time to their office, complete their paperwork and assigned duties in good order, and return to their own quarters or an appropriate establishment to relax once off-duty.”

That earned him a few blinks of china-doll eyes, and what appeared to be an utter lack of comprehension of the point he was trying to make. Scowling, he jabbed a finger at the woman as he spoke. “You, Matsumoto, are the farthest thing from an exemplary Lieutenant ever discovered by the Gotei. You arrived two hours late, did none of your assigned tasks, and spent the entire workday dumping sake down your throat!”

Blue eyes widened, blinked again, and he could see the last remnants of a hangover being burned from her frontal brain by the first delicate tendrils of alarm. That was for the best - the point had to be driven home with heavy strokes if it was to take root. 

“Captain, I -”

He cut her off, his voice level and cold. “Matsumoto, you are a drunkard and an escapist. Since you took the position, your performance as a Lieutenant has been nothing short of abysmal, and it is getting worse. To date, the only effective task in this office you have managed is that of a _paperweight.”_

When Matsumoto jerked back a half-step, shock opening her mouth, he steeled himself and struck for the kill. “If you plan to continue teaching kendo to Rukongai brats, you are expected to finish your assigned duties first.”

The blow hit home.

Her face going chalk-white, Matsumoto staggered backwards, colliding with her desk and scattering a pile of papers from the top of it. The hiss of falling parchment didn’t cover the sudden, panicked gasping of her breath.   
“You - how?” came the trembling whisper, as long fingers twisted frantically against the edge of the desktop, manicured nails bending and finally cracking as they tore into the wood. 

“As your Captain, I have a right to investigate any aspect of my subordinate’s personal lives that I believe is interfering with the fulfillment of their duties,” he answered, voice arctic as he stared at her. 

“You... followed me?” 

Yesterday, when she’d asked if he had been making fun of her, his only thought was how painful it was to see his Lieutenant in the state she’d been in; angry with the world, numbed with alcohol and cynicism. 

Today, he realized that the intoxicated numbness she’d been inflicting on herself was nothing compared to this - the pain of watching one of the most perpetually optimistic, unfailingly cheerful people he knew breaking down in front of him, fear and pain clouding eyes that never ceased to smile. 

She’d smiled for Kira’s sake, when he came to her, broken after Gin’s betrayal. She’d smiled for Shuuhei and Komamura, when they’d twice mourned together for the loss of Tousen. She’d smiled for Hinamori, as the girl mustered the courage to leave her old life and the pain of Aizen’s betrayals behind, walking away from her childhood friend for the last time. She’d even smiled for Toushirou himself; when she’d first found him, nearly freezing his grandmother to death with his uncontrolled reiatsu. When he’d joined the Academy and turned the record-books on their ear, just as Gin had done a few decades before, by graduating in under a year. (Hitsugaya, however, had managed it with full honors and attained a seated position upon graduating, something Gin had literally had to kill for.) She’d kept smiling for Hitsugaya as he won his way up through the ranks, accepted command of the Tenth, and became the most notoriously irritable Captain in the Gotei.

Through it all, Matsumoto smiled, gentle hands ready to catch her friends when they fell, and support them as they found their feet again. 

For all of them, she’d smiled. 

Last night, an hour into the practice bouts, the thin girl had managed to knock Matsumoto’s blade from her hand and halfway across the clearing, and Matsumoto had laughed in sheer joy. It was, he realized now, probably the first time he’d ever heard such an unforced, untainted sound from her.

Locking his own eyes on Matsumoto’s terrified ones, he asked quietly, “Who is she, Matsumoto?”

Pale hands lost their grip on the edge of the desk, knees buckling under the weight of fear that pressed upon her shoulders. Gracelessly, Matsumoto allowed herself to fall, crumpling to her knees before her desk, head hanging as tears began to well in her eyes. The answer, torn from her throat on a trembling whisper, hung heavy on the air before her.

“She’s my daughter.”

_______________________________________________________________________

_The crack of wooden swords echoed again, slim feet - one set bare, the other still clad in waraji and tabi socks, growing damp with the early dew - dancing through the grass to the rhythm of the blows. Another flurry of cracks, blows and blocks and parries, and a quick, breathless voice calls ‘Hold!’_

_The heavier bokken draws back, falls motionless against a round shoulder, and Matsumoto waits patiently while the girl she matches unties the black scarf that is perpetually bound over her hair._

_The thin tendrils that have escaped the braid to fall, rebellious, around her face, are soaked with sweat, but barely darkened from their natural white-blonde shade._

___________________________________________________________________

“Your...” For a moment, Hitsugaya couldn't find his breath. “Your _daughter?”_

When Matsumoto simply nodded, hair curtaining her anguished face, he sat silently for a moment, letting the information settle in his mind. 

When it did, he very quietly got up from his seat and retrieved a pitcher of drinking water and a glass from a corner of the bookshelf. The sound of liquid pouring lifted Matsumoto’s head from sheer curiosity; surprise nearly sent her cross-eyed when the glass was abruptly thrust under her nose. 

“Drink,” came the gruff demand, and she did so, only partly because her mouth was still dry and horrid-tasting from last night’s drinking. When she had emptied the glass, he took it back without a word, set it on the table next to the couch, and came back to hook a hand under her arm. “Come on,” he ordered softly, pulling her gently to her feet, and she allowed herself to be guided to the sofa. She sat down at his silent nod, staring helplessly at the table and the empty glass on it as her Captain vanished again.

She was more surprised than she should be when he reappeared a few seconds later, carrying the water pitcher and a second glass. 

“All right, Matsumoto,” he said softly, filling both glasses before he sat down beside her. “Tell me.”

Picking the glass up, she stared down at the water filling it, and almost smiled as she began.

__________________________________________________________________

“Gin and I were still children when he left Rukongai for the Academy,” Matsumoto began, sipping slowly at her glass. “He didn’t tell me he was leaving, but then, he never did. I’d come to half-expect him to up and vanish without warning, but I always expected him to come back...” Sighing, she lowered the glass, staring down at the water trembling within. “I guess I should have known, that time. It was the first time we’d ever...” 

When the sentence trailed to silence, Hitsugaya prodded her with a soft ‘Ever _what_ , Matsumoto?’

The arched eyebrow that answered him left a mortified blush tracing across his cheeks. After a long moment spent sputtering incoherent syllables, the young Captain fell silent, shook his head and gestured for her to continue.

“It took almost three months before the rumors of a silver-haired genius sweeping the Shinigami Academy reached back to my District,” she explained. “By that time, though, I knew that... well, the expression ‘it only takes once’ is right, anyway,” she grimaced, waving one hand towards her midsection. Sighing softly, Matsumoto slumped against the back of the couch, letting her head fall backwards. “I stayed a few years, long enough to make sure she could take care of herself. And then I left her with Rei-obaa-san, and followed Gin.” 

Little wonder that the words sounded bitter as she spoke them. She’d left her own child in order to follow the man who had forever been leaving her behind.

“I’ve been going back as often as I can ever since, trying to spend time with her, make her believe that I love her.” The words were sighed, weary under the weight of decades worth of guilt and pain. “I was actually coming back from visiting her when I first ran into you, Captain. I suppose it’s true what they say about Fate being a fickle mistress, eh?”

“Quite,” Hitsugaya answered dryly, frowning at the table. Silence rang for a long moment before he spoke again. “You’ve been teaching her the Shinigami arts.”

There was no question in the words, but Matsumoto nodded anyway, pushing herself up off the back of the couch to meet his eyes again. “Yes. She’s not a prodigy, not like Gin or yourself, Captain... although perhaps that’s for the best,” she added, chuckling weakly. 

“It might be some cause for concern among the upper echelons if she were,” he admitted, frown lightening ever-so-slightly. “But why isn’t she in the Academy already? Certainly she’s of age, and I know she has the reiatsu potential to be admitted. With you guiding her combat skills, she should have no problem gaining entry.”

“The problem is what it always is for Rukon children,” Matsumoto answered, sighing into her cup. “Money. I don’t know if you’re aware, Captain - you wouldn’t have had to deal with it, given your reiatsu levels when I first found you - but scholarships to Rukongai students are very limited. Although the Academy will always make arrangements for students of exceptional potential, like you, the average Rukon children have to compete with the children of low nobility and other Seireitei families for the right to enter with monetary aide. Sometimes a sponsor will pick up the expenses of a child’s schooling, but the Academy itself will only assign scholarships to those they consider exemplary. And as limited as the scholarships are...”

“Let me guess. Not enough funds for all of the Rukon brats to be put through?” 

“Exactly,” sighed Matsumoto. “And the stipend I send Rei every month means I can’t save the funds for Academy tuition.”

“I see,” Hitsugaya answered, nodding faintly as he toyed with the condensation on his water glass. After a moment of thought, he asked softly, “Who else knows about your daughter?”

The answer was as swift as it was surprising; “Nobody. You are the only person in the Gotei who knows of her existence.”

White eyebrows shot upwards, creasing the pale forehead. “You never told Ichimaru?”

“What was I supposed to say to him?” she snapped back, eyes flashing as she slammed her glass down on the table. “ ‘Oh, by the way, Gin, you got me pregnant the first time we slept together, let me introduce you to our daughter’?”

Hitsugaya grimaced mildly. Put like that, it did sound rather... “The subject never came up during... later meetings?”  
A snort answered him. “Gin didn’t waste a great deal of time thinking about the consequences of our meetings, Captain. I don’t think they mattered enough for him to care.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Hitsugaya replied, standing up slowly and collecting both glasses and the pitcher. When Matsumoto hadn’t moved from the couch after her Captain had returned to his desk and restarted his paperwork, a frigid glare was leveled in her direction. “Matsumoto...”

“Eh?”

“I will not continue to tolerate a Lieutenant who is good for nothing more than a paperweight, Matsumoto. Regardless of your personal history, you are expected to complete your work,” he added, jabbing his brush at her laden desk.

Her face went white, before a narrow flush of angry red crept across her cheeks. “I just trusted you with something I’ve never told anyone, and you -”

Clenching his teeth on the apologies he wanted to make, the sympathy he wanted to give her, he forced his voice to its notorious parade-ground bark. _“Get to work, Matsumoto!”_

Fists clenched and eyes glittering, she pushed herself up from the couch, fury and betrayal warring across her features. For one moment she stood, tears of hurt flooding her eyes as she glared at him, before his silent stare sent her spinning around, storming back to her desk. 

Bending his head over his own work, Hitsugaya tried to ignore the silent flow of tears down Matsumoto’s cheeks.

__________________________________________________________________

“You may break for lunch,” he said flatly, as the shadow of the sundial edged around to one o’clock. “I will expect you back in no more than an hour.”

It was the first either of them had spoken since he’d ordered her to her work two hours before; she’d been making her way steadily through the stack of papers on her desk, eyes diamond-hard and still heavy with tears. 

The only acknowledgement she gave his words was to carefully cap her ink and rinse and set aside her brush, shuffle her completed papers into order, push back from her desk, and leave without a word. 

Closing his eyes, Hitsugaya leaned back in his chair, trailing her reiatsu signature until she was well out of the barracks and headed deeper into Seireitei, looking for a place for lunch. Oftentimes, she would simply meander her way over to the Eighth, but Kyouraku was absent today, headed into the Living World for Rukia’s wedding, and even Matsumoto would not stoop to raiding the man’s wine cellar when he was not present to help. 

When it was reasonably certain that Matsumoto wouldn’t make an abrupt return to the office, Hitsugaya quietly drew out a sheaf of papers he’d been working on earlier in the morning and added a few notes to it. Once the ink had dried, crossed the room to tuck the papers under the much-diminished stack on the corner of his Lieutenant’s desk, then ventured off to the Division’s Mess to see what was available for his own lunch.

_______________________________________________________________________

Matsumoto returned as quietly as she’d left, resuming her seat and her work without a word. The pile of papers shrank quickly under her still-furious attentions, and Hitsugaya kept his gaze steadily on his own work, perfectly aware that he’d know when she reached the last set of forms. 

It was nearly evening by the time she did so, but he heard the soft scrape of the staple in the papers against the wood of her desk, the pause as she tried to equate the forms in her hand with standard Division paperwork, and the sharply indrawn breath as she realized that they were nothing of the sort.

“Captain -”

“Hm?” he answered mildly, raising his head from the crossword he’d resorted to an hour ago, waiting for her to finish. 

“Captain, these -” The sheaf of papers, small boxes filled with Hitsugaya’s tight, neat writing, were brandished by a shaking hand. “When did you - ?”

“First thing this morning, before you came in,” he answered calmly, and watched as Matsumoto’s eyes widened to a degree he wouldn’t have believed possible. 

The Shinigami Academy admission forms, nearly complete, were placed carefully, almost reverently, back on the desk. In the box next to ‘Sponsor,’ the name ‘Hitsugaya Toushirou’ was written in clear, bold strokes. Staring down at the papers, Matsumoto laughed, a breathy exhalation with more than a hint of tears behind it. “Captain, you... I spent all morning hating you,” she laughed, the faintest shade of hysteria coloring the words. “Why did you have to trick me like that?”

“By putting it at the bottom of your stack, you mean? If I’d left it at the top, the remainder of your paperwork would have been left unfinished,” he answered dryly, the corners of his mouth twitching upward when she blushed dully. 

“You will find, however, that those forms are almost completed,” he added softly. “All that’s left to be filled out is her name.” 

When Matsumoto shot him a startled look, he shrugged slightly. “You never mentioned it.”

“I didn’t, did I?” she laughed weakly, shaking her head and swiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “It’s Kin. Matsumoto Kin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes: The name Kin is a multi-layered pun. Phonetically, it is similar to her father’s name, Gin (meaning: silver), and the name Kin means ‘gold,’ a reference to her hair. 
> 
> More OCs will be introduced throughout the course of this story, as well as bringing back a few familiar faces. Next chapter, we’ll return to Karakura, peek in on Ichigo and Rukia’s wedding again, and see how the rest of the gang is doing.


	3. Poetry and Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translator’s Notes: The ceremony featured in this chapter, much like Byakuya and Renji’s, is based on a traditional Shinto ceremony, but has been altered to suit my own purposes. The vows that Ichigo and Rukia recite are of my own mind. 
> 
> Aka-pine: Lit. ‘Red Pineapple.’ A nickname that Renji has picked up due to his old spiky ponytail. Jinta often goads him with it, much to Renji’s annoyance, but Renji also occasionally wears a tee-shirt reading ‘Red Pineapple’ that was supposedly a gag gift from Ichigo, so it's hard to say how much he actually objects.
> 
> Warnings: Mild crack.

“This place is a madhouse.”

“Ichigo, you’ve put Yoroichi-dono, my brother, and your father under one roof. What did you expect?” Rukia whispered back to him, amusement lighting her eyes.

But he was, unfortunately, quite right. Isshin and Urahara were still arguing over something in a far corner of the room, while Yoroichi and Shinji stood by to goad the pair on whenever they stopped for breath, looking like they might have appreciated popcorn to go with the show. Kyouraku was ‘inspecting’ the sake that was supposed to be served to the guests during the ceremony while Keigo lurked nearby, looking as though he’d like to join the man but was too intimidated to do so. Ukitake and Mizuiro, by contrast, were standing on the opposite side in the room, deep in a cheerful discussion. Tatsuki, Karin and Nanao were slumped in their seats, all looking quite bored and trying very hard to ignore Mashiro, who seemed to be telling knock-knock jokes but forgetting most of the punchlines. Shuuhei and Kira had been joined in their corner by Kensei and Gin - the latter of whom was taking a break from his drink-serving duties - and the four of them were chatting amiably. 

Yuzu, Orihime, Chad, and Ishida were nowhere to be seen; probably waiting for the general chaos of the room to diminish before they reappeared. Byakuya and Renji were likewise missing, but Ichigo thought it was probably best not to inquire to closely as to their current location, or activity. 

Ichigo only sighed in response, reaching down to catch one of Rukia’s hands in his. 

“Ugh, your hands are sweaty,” she hissed at him, and received one of Ichigo’s trademark scowls in response. The expression was becoming more and more rare nowadays; the return to his old default meant that he was probably much more nervous than he was trying to let on. 

Then again, what man wasn’t nervous before his own wedding? Even Byakuya had been terrified! Not, of course, that he had admitted it at the time - it had been only a few weeks ago, as Rukia and her brothers discussed her upcoming ceremony over dinner at the manor, that he’d said anything at all.  
________________________________________________________________

_“It is normal to be uneasy before such a monumental event,” he’d said calmly, his face inscrutable over his teacup. “Do not believe that your fear represents an ill decision; it is merely the knowledge that your life will be changing.”_

_Renji laughed softly, teeth flashing as he grinned at his partner. “Hell, it was a dream come true for me, an’ I almost had a heart attack six times. Gettin’ married is probably the scariest thing anyone can ever do.”_

_Rukia huffed at him, but Byakuya shook his head slightly. “Do not dismiss his words, Rukia. Even though I knew in my heart and soul I was making the right decision in binding Renji to me, I cannot recall a time when I have been more afraid than when I knelt for our sansankudo to be poured.” He paused, smiling slightly at the memory. “Renji’s kiss reminded me why I had fought for our joining; marriage is a ceremony that binds together to halves of a whole. He and I were to become one another’s strength.”_

_There was a moment of shocked silence before Renji leaned across the table, seized the front of Byakuya’s yukata in his hand, and pulled him into a bone-melting kiss._

“ _Poet,” Renji laughingly accused when they parted, and Byakuya’s lips quirked at the accusation, a smile shining in his lavender eyes._

_“Love is poetry and passion, song,” he quipped back, and Renji laughed, pulling the man he loved into another kiss._

_And Rukia watched them, hoping with all her heart that some day, she and Ichigo could love one another that much._  
___________________________________________________________________

“It’s okay to be afraid,” she whispered, and Ichigo’s hand jerked in hers, startled. 

“What?” His eyes were wide as he looked down at her, and Rukia stared up at him, memories overwhelming her as she looked into those flame-brown eyes. She recalled them full of indignant fury, the first night they’d met, when she had stepped through his wall seeking a Hollow, filled with pain-laced determination not an hour later, as he willingly impaled himself on her Zanpakutou, taking her powers into himself and knocking down the next domino in the line that left its effects rippling through the Three Worlds. 

Weeks later, his eyes had smiled down at her as the Soukyoku burned behind him, and Rukia thought she might have lost her heart to him in that moment. She’d lost it again and again, countless times over the following months, and finally given up trying to take it back the moment she woke up in the Fourth Division, the sand of Hueco Mundo still gritty in her hair, and seen Ichigo, bruised and bloodied but alive, standing at the doorway of her room, victorious at last.

“I said, it’s okay to be afraid,” she repeated, squeezing his hand gently. “Nii-sama... how did he put it? ‘Marriage is a ceremony to join together two halves of a whole, so they may become each other’s strength.’ ”

“Your brother said _that?”_ Ichigo murmured back, incredulous, and Rukia nodded, smiling.

“He also said that he can’t remember a time that he’s been more afraid than when he and Renji knelt for their sansankudo to be poured.”

“Sounds about right,” Ichigo answered, exhaling a slow sigh. “Dammit... I was less scared going into battle against Aizen!” 

Giggling, Rukia bumped her shoulder affectionately against his arm. “Of course you were - the worst that could have done was kill you. Dying’s easy, Ichigo. It takes a good man to die for his cause, but a great man to live for it.” Dark-amber eyes widened farther, staring down at her, and Rukia smiled up at him, feeling the first traces of tears in her eyes. “You are a great man, Ichigo.”

“I -”

A politely pointed cough jerked their attention to the door in front of them; Urahara stood in the doorway, smiling indulgently at the pair. Behind him, their friends and family waited, so many different people gathered together to bear witness to their happiness. 

“Everyone’s waiting for you, Kuchiki-san, Kurosaki-san,” Urahara said gently, and Ichigo nodded, a slow smile appearing as he squeezed Rukia’s hand gently with his own. 

“We’re ready.”

___________________________________________________________________ 

The last of the sake burned gently down Ichigo’s throat. 

Closing his eyes, he exhaled slowly before turning to place the third cup in Rukia’s delicate hands. She accepted it easily, a small but glowing smile on her face as she turned forward again, extending the cup to be filled.

Across the table, Shihoin Yoroichi smiled at them both, the unearthly gold of her eyes made more brilliant by the embroidery of her kimono, and poured the final three sips of sake with flawlessly graceful movements.

There was no hesitation as Rukia drank, her hands steady on the silver cup. When the last drop had been drained from it, she handed the cup back to Yoroichi, who bowed to them both and deftly restacked the sansankudo set before moving it aside. 

As she did so, Ichigo awkwardly twisted around, taking Rukia’s hand carefully in his own. “Kuchiki Rukia,” he began, “I do so swear....” a pause, a frown. “I do so swear... to remember my vows...”

A low ripple of laughter went through the guests at that; Ichigo had only briefly rehearsed the ceremonial vows of a Shinigami marriage, and Renji in particular had been very vocal in his opinion that Ichigo should have spent a bit more time on practicing them. 

Smiling gently, Rukia leaned upwards to press a tiny kiss against the tip of his nose, just as Renji had done for Byakuya two years before. Surprise widened Ichigo’s eyes for a split-second, before the tight muscles of his shoulders relaxed and the tension fled his face. Smiling down at Rukia, he cleared his throat and began again.

“Kuchiki Rukia, I, Kurosaki Ichigo, do so swear to give to you the strength of my arm, the sharpness of my blade, and the protection of my power. I swear to be honorable and faithful to you, my wife, and stand beside you in the battles we shall face. Your joy shall be my joy, your sorrows my sorrows, your comrades my comrades, and your enemies my enemies. This I do vow to you.” 

Several people applauded; Ichigo exhaled a sigh of relief and threw a dirty look over his shoulder at them before turning back to Rukia. 

“I can’t promise that it will always be easy,” he said gently, squeezing her hand. “I know we’ll argue, and there will be enemies for us to face, battles to fight, and blood to shed. But I can promise that I will do the best I can to be a good husband to you, Rukia.” Lifting her hand, he pressed it gently to his chest, over the rapid thrum of his heart. “I don’t remember when I started loving you, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop. And that, I swear to you.”

Feeling her eyes mist, Rukia quickly sniffed, waving off Ichigo’s sudden alarm at her tears. “Don’t look so worried, you idiot, I just wasn’t expecting you to be so....”

“Sappy?” Ichigo whispered back, keeping their conversation out of the too-eager ears of their audience.

_“Wonderful,”_ Rukia corrected, shaking Renji’s handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbing at her eyes. When she had composed herself, she carefully freed her hand from Ichigo’s grasp before taking one of his own broad, callused hands between both of her own, gazing into his eyes as she recited her vows. 

“Kurosaki Ichigo, I, Kuchiki Rukia, do so swear to give to you the strength of my arm, the sharpness of my blade, and the protection of my power. I swear to be honorable and faithful to you, my husband, and stand beside you in the battles we shall face. Your joy shall be my joy, your sorrows my sorrows, your comrades my comrades, and your enemies my enemies. This I do vow to you.” 

Pausing, she let a faint smile drift over her face before adding, “I can’t promise I’ll be a perfect wife. I’m not obedient or docile, and I’m sure there will be days where we’ll hate each other as much as we love each other, but I will always do my best to do well by you. I’ll stand beside you when you fight, patch you up when you fall, and when you get depressed, I’ll kick you in the head until you stop moping.”

Several people laughed at that, knowing full well that she was being entirely serious in that oath.

“We’ll be good together, Ichigo,” she grinned. “This, I swear to you.”

Nodding faintly, Ichigo stared down at her, feeling a sense of awe sweep over him as he looked down at his wife. His wife! Marriage wasn’t something he had ever imagined, before she had burst into his office that day and declared without preamble that they were going to be married. And now... 

“You’re supposed to kiss her, moron,” Shinji hissed from his seat. 

Not even bothering to throw a scowl at him, Ichigo did.  
___________________________________________________________________

The reception was in full swing when Uryuu carefully slipped through the outside doors of the Shoten, following the familiar energy that had been pressing on his senses throughout the entire ceremony. He found her on the back porch of the shop, knees drawn up to her chest as silent sobs shook her body.

Even from behind, he knew that he would see tear tracks gleaming on her cheeks.

Without speaking, he sat down next to her, their shoulders not quite touching, and waited while she hiccuped herself back to something like composure.

“You must think I’m a terrible person,” she whispered finally, moving to wipe her eyes on her sleeve. Ishida quickly intervened with a handkerchief. 

“Of course not!” he protested, horrified by the very thought. “Why on Earth would I?”

“If you love someone, you’re supposed to want them happy,” came the broken whisper. “But here I am, crying because he’s marrying someone else.” 

Another sob tore itself free of the pale throat, and Ishida felt his heart break a little more.

“I’m selfish... terribly selfish,” she whispered again, and Uryuu surrendered propriety to put an arm around her quaking shoulders. 

“You’re not selfish,” he murmured gently, rubbing tentatively at the soft curve of her shoulder beneath his hand. “You just watched your first love marry someone else - anyone in your situation would cry. It doesn’t mean you’re selfish, or a bad person.”

A sniff, and tear-choked eyes raised to look at him. “Would you?”

Uryuu blinked slightly, not certain of the question. “Would I... what?”

“Cry,” she answered as she dropped her head again, so softly he barely heard it. “If you watched the person you loved marry someone else.” 

Startled, Uryuu stared down at the woman before him, beautiful even in her tears, and tried to imagine her marrying someone else. A sharp jab of pain went through his heart at the mere thought, and he clenched his teeth against it. There was no question in his mind; Quincy pride or no, if he had to watch this woman give herself to someone else, he would break down like a child.

He’d taken too long to answer, though; giving an embarrassed laugh, she waved her hands sheepishly before her. “Not that Ishida-kun has an unrequited love or something like that - I mean, that only happens to silly girls like me, and, - mmph?” Going slightly cross-eyed, she attempted to peer down at the two pale fingers that had settled themselves against her lips. 

“I would,” he answered her quietly, trying to ignore the way his heart raced in his chest. He hadn’t been this terrified in as long as he could remember - not even when he thought he was facing death at the hands of a mad Arrancar in the sands of Hueco Mundo. The possibility of having his heart _literally_ torn from his body was, absurdly, nowhere near as intimidating as having it _figuratively_ done so.

Behind his fingers, she made a faint noise of inquiry at the back of her throat, making no attempt to dislodge his hand.

“I... I would cry if I watched the one I loved marry someone else,” he elaborated uneasily, and watched the surprise flare in her eyes before sadness quickly replaced it. Feeling awkward, he slowly removed his fingers from her mouth, freeing her to speak again.

“I, uhm....” Pale, delicate fingers bunched in the skirt of the sunset-painted kimono, oranges and pinks and purples wrinkling against twilight-blue. “Ishida-kun likes... somebody?” 

“I do,” he answered gravely, his eyes fixed steadily on her pale, tearstained, beautiful face. She averted her eyes from his stare, turning her gaze to the ground and swallowing, clearly trying not to cry again. 

“She is the kind of person I cannot help but love,” Ishida said quietly, his heart beating so fast within his chest that it surely sounded like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings. “She is very beautiful, with an amazingly good heart. She’s sweet and funny and kind, and much smarter than people realize, and... she’s incredibly brave,” he finished, his voice barely above a whisper. “She was willing to give up everything for the hope of protecting her friends. She was always willing to put her heart out for those she felt for, whether or not they returned the feelings. She’s really much braver than I am,” he added with a sigh. “I can face down an army of rampaging Hollow without blinking, but I could never find the nerve to tell her how I feel...” Delicate as the brush of a butterfly’s wing, his fingers brushed over her temple, barely touching the glittering pins in her hair, gliding down her cheek to settle themselves beneath her chin, where they carefully lifted her head to meet his gaze. 

“Until now,” he finished, and watched her eyes go wide in surprise. 

Slipping carefully off the step, he dropped to one knee before her on the dusty ground, nervously taking her hand in his own, staring at the delicate strength of her fingers as he spoke. “I know... I know that I’m a poor substitute for Kurosaki,” he admitted softly. “I can’t compare with his strength or his looks or his sheer power, but I have loved you for more years than you know, and I will do anything in my power to prove it to you if you ask. I will throw down my very life to defend you, because without you, my life would be empty.” 

Looking up into wide silver eyes, he whispered the words that had been only a dream for so long. “I... want to ask you to marry me, Orihime.”

Astonishment spread across her face; a long moment passed in stunned silence. Just as Ishida felt his hopes beginning to crumble and wither into dust, she gave a soft gasp and hurled herself off the step into his arms, tears of joy wetting his collar as she whispered her acceptance against his throat.

_______________________________________________________________

“Where have you been?”

It was, really, a much more tactful question than _‘Why has Orihime been crying?’_ or _‘What the Hell have you two been doing?’_ , neither of which would have surprised Uryuu, coming out of Tatsuki’s mouth. The girl frankly looked mad enough to spit nails. It wasn’t surprising; Arisawa was incredibly protective of their group’s Princess. Ordinarily, Ishida appreciated the sentiment, but at the moment, it bordered on intrusive.

“Orihime-san needed some air,” Uryuu answered, shoving his glasses up his nose, at the same moment that Orihime answered cheerfully, “Oh, Uryuu-kun just needed to ask me something is all!”

Tatsuki raised her eyebrows in silence, letting her disbelieving expression speak for her. Uryuu grimaced and pushed his glasses up his nose again, peering at the design on her kimono - intricate bronze and gold dragons twining across the burnt-umber silk - before gently squeezing the delicate hand still nestled in his own, fingers interlacing with his. “It’s somewhat personal, Arisawa-san...”

“Arisawa-san,” the dark-haired girl snorted in disgust, shaking her head. “As if we haven’t spent the past how many months beating the crap out of each other in the training room, Uryuu.” Ignoring his ingrained bristle at the casual familiarity, Tatsuki turned her gaze to the girl next to him. “What was it he asked you, Orihime?”

“Really, Arisawa, it’s not -”

“Go ahead and spill it, Orihime,” Rukia piped up from a few feet away, as she and Ichigo stepped off the dance floor for a short break. Both of them looked deliriously happy - the expression was bizarre on Ichigo’s face - and their eyes were bright with happiness and curiosity. “There shouldn’t be secrets among friends.”

“If only,” Uryuu sighed, but the remark went entirely unnoticed.

Orihime, meanwhile, shook her head wildly, waving her free hand sheepishly in front of her. “No, no, I can’t say, really. Today is for the two of you, Kuchiki-san, Kurosaki-kun, and it would be very rude of me to take away the attention from you, and I’m being quite rude now, aren’t I?” A nervous giggle chased the sentence, and Ichigo and Rukia both cast fond smiles at the girl. 

“Orihime,” Rukia interrupted gently, stepping forward and settling her hands on Orihime’s shoulders, “you are part of our family. If you have something you need to tell us, then just tell us.”

“I don’t...” Nervous fingers bunched the skirt of her kimono again - if Uryuu had not still been holding one of her hands, she would no doubt have been wringing them together - “I don’t want to take away from your day. This is about the two of you and your love for each other,” she whispered softly, ducking her head. Rukia opened her mouth to respond, but, much to her surprise, Ichigo reached past her, one callus-roughened hand slipping under Orihime’s chin to tilt her head back up.

“Hey,” Ichigo chided lightly. “You’re wrong. Today’s not about just Rukia and me - it’s about family. And you’re part of our family, so spill it. What’s the matter?”

It would have been a genuinely touching moment if Isshin had not chosen that precise moment to tackle Ichigo, exclaiming how wonderfully considerate a man his son had grown up to be, and Ichigo proved precisely how considerate he was by kicking his father in the stomach rather than the face, sending the man reeling backwards to fall over a chair. 

“Oh, for the love of the goddesses, act your age, Isshin!” Ukitake snapped, getting a hand under Isshin’s arm and hauling him into a sitting position with Kyouraku’s help. Kyouraku, for his part, snickered and toasted Ichigo with his glass before half-turning and dumping the contents of said glass down Isshin’s throat. 

“It’s sad,” Ichigo remarked to nobody in particular, “when I’m the _normal_ man of the family.”

There wasn’t much to be said to that, really, so Tatsuki merely shook her head and prodded Orihime in the shoulder. 

“Oy, ‘hime. What did Arrow-boy ask you?”

“I beg your pardon?” Uryuu sputtered, but Rukia had jumped in again, nodding enthusiastically. 

“Yes, tell us, Orihime! If it’s good news, we’ll all share your happiness with you, and if it’s bad news, we can - what’s this?” she asked, curious, catching Orihime’s left wrist and raising the hand to eye-level. Ishida had been holding her left hand up until Isshin had tackled Ichigo; he’d released it in favor of grasping her shoulders instead, ready to push the girl behind him if necessary. 

“Ah, well, that’s... kind of what I was going to not tell you just yet,” Orihime answered, blushing brilliantly, as everyone crowded around to get a better look. Suppressing a sigh, Uryuu pushed forward and raised his own left hand next to Orihime’s.

He hadn’t been sure what possessed him to slip the three small spools of metallic thread into his pocket when he dressed for the wedding earlier. Now, as the light glimmered off the woven strands of platinum, silver, and white-gold, he understood Fate’s odd nudges of prescience. Weaving was not the greatest of his talents, but his fingers had flown through crafting the thin, intricate bands that were fastened around the base of his and Orihime’s left ring fingers.

“Ishida-kun and I are getting married!”

_______________________________________________________________________

There was a moment of utter, astonished silence throughout the entire room.

It was, of course, Isshin who broke it, snickering loudly as he stood up, dusting off his suit pants. “Ryuuken will be thrilled,” he chortled. “Now he’ll really wish he’d come. He can’t deny that he’s part of the family now!”

“An’ you don’ think invitin’ a Quincy t’ a Shinigami weddin’ wasn’t in _slightly_ bad form?” Gin asked dryly as he swept by with the drinks tray again, pausing long enough to hand off an entire bottle of sake to Kyouraku. 

Isshin managed to sputter a few more repetitions of ‘family!’ before Kyouraku drained the bottle in four fast swallows and brought it down on the back of Isshin’s head.

“Still harboring a bit of a grudge over his disappearing act, Shunsui?” Yoroichi drawled, arms folded across her chest as she peered at Isshin, who was clutching his abused skull and swearing softly under his breath. 

“It’s quite understandable, really,” Ukitake answered, delicately plucking a cup of steaming mint tea from Gin’s tray. “When someone you’ve been that close to for so many years simply vanishes without a word, you certainly expect them to be dead. If Kyouraku did such a thing to me, I would likely be rather annoyed as well.” 

“Remind me not to get on Ukitake’s bad side,” Hisagi stage-whispered to Kira, and a low wave of laughter broke the awkward tension of the moment.

Smirking, Rukia set two fingers under her new husband’s jaw and pushed, shutting his mouth with a snap. “You’ll catch flies that way, dumbass.”

“I.... you....” Shaking his head, Ichigo managed to scrape together enough of his faculties to point at Ishida and Orihime, before summing his general thoughts up into one eloquent inquiry. _“What?”_

“What do you mean, ‘what’?” Uryuu shot back, shoving at his glasses again. “I proposed to Orihime and she accepted, what part of that is beyond your cognitive abilities?”

“It’s just that... I dunno, you’re always so... prissy and girly and shit, I guess I thought you were gay.”

Dead silence reigned again, broken only by a few badly-squelched giggles from odd points in the room. Uryuu, unable to push his glasses further up his nose - the bottoms of the frames were already cutting into his cheekbones - arched his eyebrows instead.

“ ‘Prissy and girly and shit’? That’s an idiotically narrow-minded assumption to make, Ichigo, given the company we’re in... and particularly given that your brothers-in-law are standing directly behind you,” he remarked coolly.

Blanching somewhat, Ichigo turned to look over his shoulder. True to Ishida’s word, Renji and Byakuya were standing virtually within arm’s reach. Byakuya limited his reaction to Ichigo’s remark to merely raising an eyebrow, his silver-toned eyes cool. Renji, however, gave the younger Shinigami an expression that had too many teeth in it to really be called a smile. 

Grimacing, Ichigo stepped backwards, away from the two. “Sorry. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the refreshment table, extracting my foot from my mouth,” he announced, the level calm of his voice belying the flaming blush on his face, and scuttled off across the room before they could respond. 

He hadn’t made it more than three steps before Renji lost control of himself, snorting a laugh loud enough to make Yuzu and Keigo jump before letting the snickers run freely. 

“Shit, Ichigo, the look on your face...” 

Back stiff, Ichigo stopped in his tracks, visibly bristling. “Shut up, Akapine!”

Renji’s laughter snapped off like someone had flipped a switch, stormclouds boiling across his brow. “Who are you calling a pineapple, strawberry?”

_“Strawberry?”_ Ichigo shouted back, and promptly leapt the distance between them, tackling Renji around the waist and carrying them both to the floor. Byakuya and Rukia sidestepped the flailing tangle of limbs with equal grace and stood side-by-side, watching the hotheaded duo tumble back and forth on the floor for a moment before exchanging identical expressions of mingled exasperation and amusement. 

(“Oh,” Shinji drawled from a safe distance away. “Fruit punch.”)

Neither Renji nor Ichigo was particularly serious about the scuffle - it was, really, just a breakout born of high spirits and nerves, something that was guaranteed to happen in some form or another, given the number of rather high-strung personalities in the building. 

Which did not, of course, excuse their behavior one bit in Rukia’s mind. “Hey,” she snapped, and when the pair didn’t respond, she scowled and swung a kick that caught both of them a glancing blow across the tops of their heads. “HEY!”

“Shit!”

“Ow, Rukia!”

“When are you two going to grow up?” she demanded, shaking her head. 

Simultaneously, the two men raised their hands, each pointing at the other. “He started it!”

“You _both_ started it,” Rukia snapped, but fell silent as her brother stepped forward, hooking a hand under Renji’s elbow and hauling the bigger man to his feet with no apparent effort. 

“I apologize for Renji’s part in the argument,” Byakuya intoned calmly, silencing Renji’s automatic protest with a single look. “I can assure you that he will be sufficiently... disciplined... upon returning to the house.”

An expression of openmouthed disbelief on his face, Renji could only stare at his partner until the Kuchiki scion glanced back at him, mischief burning in the depths of his amethyst eyes.

Comprehension dawned, and Renji’s garnet eyes deepened with the heat kindling within them. “Oh, you’re gonna ‘discipline’ me, huh?” Renji murmured back, a slow grin curling his mouth as he shifted a little closer to the noble. “Punish me for bad behavior... _Taichou?”_

“Oh, I so do not need to hear this,” Ichigo groaned, rolling to his feet and heading rapidly towards the buffet table.

Byakuya smirked, Renji snickered, and Rukia had to stuff almost the entirety of her fist in her mouth before she could gain enough control over her laughter to follow her husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES, I ship Ishihime. For those of you who do not, I apologize, but go and reread manga ch. 344, pg. 9, and ch. 347, pages 4 and 5. Yes, those three pages were all it took to turn me into a devout Ishihime shipper.


	4. Paper and Stone

Stifling a groan, Hisagi Shuuhei rolled over on his futon, blindly swinging out with one hand and fortuitously connecting with the clamoring alarm clock at his bedside. Not so fortuitously, the blow did not silence the infernal machine, merely toppled it to the floor where it continued to clang, now buzzing its way across the polished wooden floor as well.

Pressed against his back, Kira made a vague and unintelligible noise that Shuuhei assumed was in protest of the alarm, and Shuuhei sighed in exasperation as he hauled himself out of the warm embrace of his blankets and his lover, stretching one arm out enough to grab the offending piece of machinery. 

Once it had been silenced, he set it back where it belonged and sat silently for a moment, only half-under the covers, and contemplating throwing his usual breakfast plans out the window in favor of crawling back under the blankets. He’d been up until either painfully late that night or more painfully early that morning, celebrating Ichigo and Rukia’s wedding. Although he couldn’t remember clearly, he had the feeling a drinking contest against Hirako Shinji and Kyouraku-taichou might have appeared at some point in the last twelve hours, which would go a long way towards explaining the pounding in his head. 

It would not, however, go a long way towards explaining a fuzzy memory that Rukia had drunk the lot of them under the table. There was no way a girl that tiny could hold her alcohol that well. Not unless it had something to do with ice.... did he remember ice?

“Ow,” Kira said vaguely, his head still buried under the covers, and Shuuhei grunted in agreement. 

“We should get up,” Kira sighed, wriggling forward; Shuuhei glanced down to see the blond peering out from under the blanket, his face mournful. “We’ll miss your breakfast otherwise.”

“The hell with breakfast,” Hisagi groaned, leaning back and letting himself slide down the small heap of pillows behind his back. “I’m not sure I could eat anyway.” Closing his eyes, he contemplated dozing off again before deciding he was too awake to do so. And his head hurt too much.

“Was I imagining things, or did Rukia really drink ten other people including me, Renji, Shinji, and Kyouraku-taichou into a stupor last night?”

“You’re not imagining things,” Kira answered, squirming a little farther out from under the covers and shifting to rest his head against Shuuhei’s chest. Automatically, Shuuhei raised one hand and began stroking over the pale blond hair. 

“I remember from my time in the Fourth..." Kira continued, voice muffled against Shuuhei's chest, "Something to do with ice-type Zanpakutou makes their wielders more resistant to alcohol intoxication. Some forms of poisons, too, I think.”

“Must be nice to have a Zanpakutou with fringe benefits,” Shuuhei muttered, and, ignoring Kazeshini’s litany of curses, slowly levered himself up and out of bed. 

“Agreed,” Kira sighed, and the pair of them headed for the washroom together, hoping to put a positive spin on the new day.  
______________________________________________________________

“Good morning, Captain! Oh, and Kira-taichou, this is a treat!” sparkled Yumichika, radiant as always in a soft lavender yukata with bands of azure embroidery at the cuffs and collar. He was seated in a perfect seiza on one of the many overstuffed floor pillows that occupied the living room of his quarters, a delicate bowl of rice in hand.

“Mornin’ Yumi, Ikkaku,” Shuuhei grinned back, one arm comfortably slung around Kira’s shoulders. Both of them were still damp-haired from their earlier bath, and the faint blush it had put on Kira’s cheeks hadn’t quite faded.

It had been Shuuhei’s idea, shortly after being promoted to Captain, that he and his Lieutenant would get together for breakfast every day. It was, in part, a decision made in reaction to his own Captain’s defection; few days had gone by in the months following the War that he did not wonder if Tousen would still have betrayed them had he been closer to his Squad. Aside from that, it gave he and Yumichika plenty of time to go over their plans for the day, as well as discuss any events of the previous day that hadn’t made it into reports.

The insistence on dining with his Lieutenant - and by extension, Ikkaku, who stayed in Yumichika’s quarters every night - had resulted in a few awkward mornings before the three of them settled into a comfortable rhythm, one that Kira easily fell into on the not-infrequent occasion he joined them. 

Now, every morning that was not following a graveyard-shift patrol or a major Hollow attack had an easy pattern to it. Of the three of them, Yumichika would awaken first, set out the breakfast that one of the aides would bring by every morning, then rattle Ikkaku awake and dump enough coffee down his throat for the Eleventh-divisioner to at least be able to feign coherency by the time Shuuhei stumbled his way in a few minutes later. 

It might have been easier to have done all of this in Shuuhei’s much-larger quarters, but Yumichika - of course - insisted on being in his own ‘beautiful environment while enjoying the first meal of the new day.’ 

Once they’d eaten, Ikkaku would dress, kiss Yumichika goodbye, and make his way to the Eleventh; Kira, if he was in attendance, would perpetually beat him out the gate. Shuuhei, who washed and dressed before eating, would head to the office for an early start on the paperwork while Yumi tidied up and dressed, following his Captain to the office no more than a half-hour later.

When Hisagi arrived at his office that morning, though, his mind still idly drifting over an unusually pleasant hour spent in the company of his friends and lover, he was rather surprised to find someone already waiting for him.

“Captain Hitsugaya,” he said, staring a bit blankly at the young prodigy sitting stiffly in one of the azure-upholstered wing chairs Yumichika had insisted on. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” the young Captain answered softly, and Hisagi noted the faint lines of tension furrowing Hitsugaya’s brow. “It’s about Matsumoto.”

_____________________________________________________________________

“About.... Rangiku-san?” Hisagi echoed, not entirely certain he’d heard right, and frowned at Hitsugaya’s tense nod. 

“Yes. I was hoping to talk to you about her past,” came the quiet reply, and Shuuhei frowned, his head tilting inquisitively as he regarded the younger man. Hitsugaya noticed the expression, his frown deepening as he caught Hisagi’s eye.

“Even though she’s been my Lieutenant for several years now, I know... very little about her. Other than the obvious,” he added, scowling, and Shuuhei had to fight back the urge to laugh despite his concern. 

Dropping down into the seat next to Hitsugaya’s, he settled his elbows on his knees and his chin on his interlaced fingers. “I don’t know what I can tell you, sir. I’ve known Ran for years, but she’s pretty private. You ask her something, and she talks a lot about surface stuff - ” the Lieutenant’s attributes needed not even be mentioned - “and you don’t realize that she’s using that to distract from answering the real question.”

“She drinks with you,” Hitsugaya answered, his tone thoughtful. “You, Kira, and perhaps Abarai are the closest thing she has to true friends at this point. And I know Matsumoto’s tongue gets lose when she drinks, because I’ve heard more than I care to admit about various feminine.... _things_.... while she’s in her bottles.”

Shuuhei bit back a snort of laughter at the half-appalled, half-embarrassed expression on the other Captain’s face, before sitting back in his chair and running a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t know much, Hitsugaya-taichou. She grew up in a higher level of Rukongai than I did - probably Seventies, although she’s never mentioned it specifically. Ichimaru saved her life when she was young and they grew up together. He left Rukongai for the Academy when they were both still kids; she stayed behind for a few more years, then came to Seireitei on invitation to the Academy - what?” he added, confused, as Hitsugaya’s head snapped up, eyes intent.

“She was an invitational student?” 

“Yes,” Hisagi answered slowly, his own eyes slanting away as he thought. “We only discussed it once, but I remembered because it was so unusual. She only said that a Shinigami delivered the invitation to her - I never thought to ask who had signed off on her recommendation.”

While it wasn’t particularly common for a Rukongai child to receive a specific invitation to join the ranks of the Academy, it was not unheard of. Within a day or two, Hitsugaya, as the sponsor of record, would receive an invitation to be delivered to Kin for her own admission. The invitations were issued to children - or rarely, adults - who had shown enough promise with regards to combat skills, reiatsu potential, or both, to catch the attention of the Shinigami who patrolled their district. They would usually be inspected - frequently unawares and at a distance - by a high-ranking Gotei officer, who would then submit their names and an assessment of their abilities to the Academy for review. Those who were not fortunate enough to catch the eye of a passing patrol were within their rights to journey to the walls of Seireitei, and petition for assessment by an Academy instructor. 

Geniuses like Gin and Toushirou got into Academy on the Gotei’s funds, but moderate students like Kin - and as he had assumed Matsumoto had been - had to have a sponsor. 

If she had a sponsor, there would be a paper trail, probably with a name at the end of it. And there was a little niggling sense at the back of his mind that he needed to find out that name. 

Quickly schooling his face back into a blank mask, he rose from his seat and offered the other Captain a short bow. “Thank you, Hisagi, you’ve been quite helpful.”

Bewilderment registered on the tattooed face for a moment, before Hisagi shrugged off the reaction and nodded, rising to return the gesture. “I’m glad I could help, Hitsugaya-taichou.”

“As am I,” came the distracted response, a frown twisting the words slightly. After a moment of heavy consideration, those razor-sharp teal eyes locked on his again. “Hisagi, does the name Kin mean anything to you?”

_Kin?_ Shuuhei blinked, bewildered, and shrugged slightly. “Golden?”

Hitsugaya snorted faintly and tugged the door open. “Never mind. Good day, Hisagi.”

“Good day, sir... Oh, Hitsugaya-taichou!”

Pausing, Toushirou half-turned, glancing over his shoulder at Hisagi, who was scowling at his desk, a vaguely irritated expression on his face. “Question, sir.”

“What is it?”

Wincing slightly, Hisagi hesitated, then asked in a rush, “What’s your alcohol tolerance like?”

There was a momentary pause while both of them processed the question; Shuuhei, astonished that he had actually dared to ask it; Hitsugaya, rather astonished that Hisagi thought of him consuming alcohol, when most of his other peers still considered him a child. Another beat of silence went by, the red blush tinting Shuuhei’s cheekbones progressively darker, before Hitsugaya coughed slightly. 

“My alcohol tolerance.... is significantly better than yours, Hisagi-taichou,” he answered, and slipped out while the man was still gaping.  
__________________________________________________________________

 

“Minori-fukutaichou.”

Two solid years of practice prevented Ise Minori, Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division, from jumping at the sudden sound of Kuchiki Byakuya’s voice. The man seemed infernally fond of sneaking up on people, although whether he did it for some sort of perverse amusement or simply to keep his talent for masking his reiatsu sharp, nobody had ever dared ask him. 

“Kuchiki-taichou,” she answered smoothly, shifting the reports she’d been shuffling through under her arm and bowing deeply. “How may I be of assistance today?”

Even now, two years after Abarai Renji’s promotion to Captain of the Fifth, Byakuya had not sought to replace his former Lieutenant. However, because the Fifth and Sixth Divisions frequently drilled and patrolled together, it was easy enough for Minori to step in and assist Byakuya’s subordinates whenever the lack of a Lieutenant threatened to make the workload impossible on the other officers. 

The Fifth and Sixth together were, in the words of Yamamoto Genryuusei himself, ‘prime examples of interDivision cooperation.‘ Both squads could and did obey the orders of the other Division’s commanding officers as easily as their own, and their frequent combined practices made their teamwork virtually flawless. The proficiency rate of the officers had risen so quickly with the unorthodox joint command structure that several other Divisions had taken to emulating it; the Third and Ninth had begun regular joint training sessions, and Ukitake and Kyouraku had begun sending out combined patrol teams, with resounding success.

The days in which the Gotei functioned as thirteen completely separate autocracies had vanished into the blood-choked dust of the Winter War. Before that, each Captain was allowed to lead his Squad essentially however he or she pleased, provided patrols were completed and reports submitted. Meetings of the commanding officers had been sporadic at best and attendance was voluntary; it was not uncommon for Captains of disparate Squads to go months without seeing one another.

In the end, although he was not alive to appreciate it, Aizen had been responsible for completely changing the way the Gotei operated.

Twice-monthly Captain’s meetings - attendance mandatory - were held the first and fifteenth day of every month. Vice-Captains were also to attend the first-of-the-month meetings, and most everyone - Zaraki and Yachiru not necessarily included - tolerated the imposition on their time with a minimum of fuss. Each Captain would inform the others of their Division’s training, patrols, and other duties, allowing everyone to compare different training styles and tactics as well as assess morale.

It was an approach that, if implemented centuries ago, might have ended Aizen’s betrayal before it began. Implemented now, at least it stood a good chance of preventing a similar betrayal from occurring in the future.

________________________________________________________________ 

_“How may I be of assistance today?”_

“Renji’s work schedule,” Byakuya answered. “What items are on his calender for today?”

Without even needing to check, Minori shook her head slightly. “Nothing, sir. He took today off.”

One silent, eloquent eyebrow arched. Without batting an eye, Minori carefully pulled a small calender from under a pile of personnel files on the surface of Renji’s desk and tapped one finger against the day’s date. “He took this date off last year, too, sir. It’s been on the books for quite some time.”

“I expected as much,” Byakuya answered, after a moment’s pause. “As you were, fukutaichou.” Without another word, he vanished into Flashstep.

Minori sighed in exasperation, saluted the spot where he had been standing, and returned to her work.  
___________________________________________________________________

Frowning faintly, Renji leaned over the edge of the koi pond in the Kuchiki manor garden, scrutinizing his appearance in the still water.

There was no way for him to ‘blend in’ anymore. Years of good food, solid rest, and fierce training had left their mark on him. He was clean, well-fed, clearly healthy; all things that the inhabitants of Inuzuri could rarely claim. Even the plain brown yukata he wore - now the poorest garment he owned - was of good, solid material, with no patches or holes, and if a seam here or there showed a repair by Renji’s inexpert hand, well, the repairs were made with solid thread and a sharp needle, and still a finer stitch than most of the district’s citizens could manage. And of course, his hair - despite being bound back in a wrist-thick braid - was still bound to attract attention, as it always had.

And yet, year after year, he and Rukia went back on this day, laying offerings at the graves of their childhood friends before walking through the streets of Inuzuri, eyes sharp for any children who might be like they were; starving, reiatsu-skilled little pups, stealing scraps from the gutters.

This year, though, he was faced with making the trip alone. He wasn’t quite certain if Rukia had been thinking about their yearly pilgrimage when she set the date of her wedding, but she and Ichigo would be heading off on their honeymoon as Renji headed into the ugly depths of Rukongai. 

It was entirely possible that Rukia had chosen the date intentionally; her quiet way of breaking the last chain binding her to her past in Inuzuri, freeing her to step fully into her new life; she was Kurosaki Ichigo’s wife, Ukitake Jyuushiro’s Lieutenant, and - he never was quite sure how it had happened - a recognized member of the Kuchiki Clan Council.

If she had done it on purpose, he knew he could not blame her. Over half a century had gone by since the pair of them had stood upon that hillside and sworn to become Shinigami, and the chances that their old friends would know them now were minute to nonexistent. 

But Renji still made the journey every year, bearing offerings to the three weather-worn stone markers on the hill.

One of the house staff, wearing the dusty-blue yukata of a lower servant, approached him, head bent in a nervous bow over the heavy pack he carried, well-laden with food items from the kitchens. The bad habits of born nobility were beginning to rub off on Renji; he barely glanced at the servant as the man stepped forward, his mind already racing along distant courses.

“Thanks,” Renji muttered offhandedly as he accepted the bag from the man. The servant bowed deeper still, the end of his black ponytail falling forward over his head as he did so, and started to turn away.

Faster than thought, Renji’s hand snapped out, seizing the back of the blue yukata and before the man could take a step. “Hold it!”

The man froze under Renji’s grasp, the lean body perfectly still under the heavy cotton robe. Scowling at the back of the dark head, Renji shook his head slightly. “I know I’m not at my best righ’ now, but did ya honestly think I wouldn’t notice?” he snapped, giving his captive the lightest of shakes to prove his point.

A faint huff of amusement escaped the dark-haired man, and the ducked head slowly lifted, strands of ink-black hair falling back into neat order as humor-bright amethyst eyes raised to meet Renji’s gaze.

“I expected you to make the realization somewhat sooner, actually,” Byakuya replied, the corners of his mouth quirking upward, and Renji shook his head slightly, caught between disbelief and amusement.

“Too busy thinkin’,” he answered gruffly, taking a half-step backwards to assess the bizarre sight of Kuchiki Byakuya in the garb of a lower servant. “An’ I wasn’ exactly expectin’ t’ see you runnin’ around lookin’ like the help. What’re you playin’ dress-up for, anyway?”

“It is,” came the dry response, “somewhat less noticeable than a Captain’s haori and kenseikan. I believe this will stand out far less in Inuzuri.”

“In...” sheer astonishment dropped Renji’s jaw; for a moment, he could do nothing more than stare at his partner. “In Inuzuri?”

“Yes,” Byakuya answered calmly, straightening the twisted yukata with a shrug of his shoulders. For a moment, he let the silence linger, before his eyes softened slightly, the expression on his face gentle. “I know that you and Rukia return to Rukongai on this day every year to pay tribute to your childhood friends. She cannot stand at your side this year, but... if you would have me there, I will not see you go alone.”

“If... I would have you there?” Renji echoed, incredulity returning his voice. Wordlessly, he reached out, grasping Byakuya’s slim shoulders in his hands and drawing the noble against his chest. “Byakuya, havin’ you b’side me today.... it would mean the world to me.”

______________________________________________________________________

Stifling an infuriated sigh, Captain Hitsugaya slammed the records book closed rather more sharply than necessary. A thin cloud of dust billowed from between the pages, and he immediately covered his nose with his sleeve. The last thing he needed was to be taken by another sneezing fit.

He’d spent the last five hours searching through Academy records, financial documents, even the sealed personnel files, driven by the uneasy feeling that had been twining through his gut ever since Shuuhei mentioned Rangiku had been an invited student. Matsumoto had always been lazy; that and her addiction to alcohol were her greatest faults, keeping her as a merely competent officer when she could quite easily have been exemplary. 

Also, although they discussed their respective histories only very rarely, she had never once commented on the fact she’d received an invitation to the Academy. He had always assumed that she had petitioned for assessment, the same way Renji, Rukia, and most of the other Rukon-bred Shinigami had. 

Curiosity, combined with his inner prodding, had driven him to spend his morning going from archive to archive, trying to find what should have been relatively easy-to-access information; the name of Matsumoto’s sponsor. It should have been listed on the Academy registry for that year, in her main personnel file - not the simple one at the office of the Tenth, but the one maintained by the record-keepers of the First Division, which were far more detailed. It was a piece of information he should have been able to retrieve in five _minutes_ , not five hours.

However, despite being kidou-protected, all of the documents that would have contained the name of Matsumoto’s patron had been damaged beyond legibility or repair.

_All_ of the documents. In all of the archives. Some had burned in mysterious fires, others had the ill fortune to be under a leak in the roof. More still had been torn, three had fallen victim to voracious mice, and one entire volume of Academy records had been hollowed out to provide a convenient hiding place for a series of pornographic photographs involving one of the archival staff and an unseated officer he thought was from the Eleventh. 

It had taken him half an hour to stop blushing after _that_ discovery.

Now, with a headache throbbing in his temples and his stomach growling protest at the fact he was once again ignoring the dictates of a regular eating schedule, he shoved the book back onto the shelf he’d pulled it from and left the archival building in a huff.

He had every intention of returning to the Tenth Division, grabbing a brief lunch in the mess hall, and then taking the obvious course of action and asking Matsumoto if she knew the identity of her sponsor.

He rather doubted she would, though. It was not at all uncommon for a sponsor to withhold their identity from their chosen beneficiary; more than one noble’s bastard child had been put through the Academy in this manner. And if Rangiku’s patron was taking such care to prevent their identity being revealed - after the third set of damaged papers, he was quite convinced that there was no coincidence involved - he doubted that the answer would be as simple as asking his Lieutenant. 

“Oh! Toushirou-kun!” 

Toushirou winced. While he was usually able to maintain a modicum of bewildered respect for the man now waving to him, the steady ache in his temples was wearing on his patience and temper. He didn’t want to offend or upset the older Captain by being unintentionally rude - as Matsumoto had blisteringly informed him, even his well-intentioned attempts at helping her had come off quite cruelly - he thought the man would be more upset if Toushirou ignored him. Wearily, he raised a hand to wave back, hoping that that would be the end of it, but Ukitake was already coming over, an amused Kyouraku trailing in his wake. 

“Ukitake-taichou, Kyouraku-taichou. Good morning.”

“I think you mean ‘good afternoon,’ ” Kyouraku corrected, pushing the brim of his hat up slightly and peering down at the young Captain. “It’s almost an hour past midday.”

“Ah.” Well, that certainly explained his stomach’s dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. “I lost track of time, I’m afraid,” he sighed, and, much to his embarrassment, his stomach punctuated the statement with a loud growl.

“Oh, perfect!” Ukitake smiled. “Kyouraku and I were just headed to lunch; please, you should join us!”

“I couldn’t impose -”

“It’s not an imposition, it’s an invitation,” Kyouraku drawled back, a lazy grin crossing his face. “Come on, Hitsugaya. You know Jyuu-chan loves feeding you.”

Ukitake nodded cheerfully in response - the man did indeed enjoy doting on his friends and comrades - and Hitsugaya could only nod his acceptance and allow himself to be swept off.

___________________________________________________________________

 

Pale fingers hesitated, hovering momentarily over the time-worn surface of the grave marker, before settling gently against the cool stone. Almost reverently, Byakuya bowed to the simple monument, granting the marker as much respect as he did Hisana’s elaborate shrine. 

He and Renji moved silently around the three graves, laying out the offerings - incense, which Byakuya sparked with careful application of kidou - and food, more of it than even three hungry boys could have consumed in a week, beside the markers. Byakuya did not question the quantity of simple, nourishing fare that Renji had requested from the Kuchiki family’s kitchens; he, like Renji, was perfectly aware of the two bright pairs of eyes, watching hungrily from the shadows of the bushes on the far side of the outcropping.

“How many children do you expect to feed with these offerings?” he asked quietly, keeping his voice low enough that it would not reach the two lurking in the brush. 

Shrugging slightly, Renji began rolling up the bag he was holding. “Dunno. Kids tend t’ bunch together out here - could be just those two, or they could be scouts for a group of twenty. No way of knowin’ without askin’ ‘em, an’ I don’t think they’d talk to us.” Tying the bag off, he shoved it roughly into his belt, opposite Zabimaru, and stood up, dusting off the knees of his yukata. “I, uh, always walk back through the town... figure I can check for any kids who’re like... well, like Rukia an’ me...”

“You need not justify your course to me, Renji. Today, I follow you.”

Barking a soft laugh, Renji reached forward and jerked the noble into an unexpected embrace. “How is it that you can always say jus’ what I need t’ hear?” he whispered, mouth smiling against Byakuya’s ear, and the noble laughed softly.

“I ask Zabimaru what you most need me to say, of course.”

Incredulity painted itself across Renji’s face for two heartbeats, until the perfect blankness of Byakuya’s face cracked slightly, and a very faint smile curled the edges of his mouth. 

Laughing, Renji cuffed him on the shoulder. “You ass. You keep sayin’ shit like that with a perfectly straight face, I can never tell if you’re jokin’ or not!”

“Forgive me for stating the obvious, but that is precisely the point.”

A grin bright on his face, Renji slung an arm over Byakuya’s shoulders. “Ah, you know you’re forgiven,” he snorted, and turned them both towards the path that lead back to the main village of Inuzuri. 

Both of them pretended to ignore the rustle-flash of movement from behind them, as hungry fingers snatched at the food they had left behind.

___________________________________________________________________

“Where you in the archives all morning, Hitsugaya?” Kyouraku asked, some time later, when the server had cleared away their emptied dishes, leaving them to linger over drinks; tea for Hitsugaya and Ukitake and sake for Kyouraku. 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Hitsugaya sighed, inhaling the steam curling from his cup. “I was looking for a minor piece of information, but every document that should have contained it had been damaged somehow.”

“Eh?” Frowning, Kyouraku stopped with his sake bowl halfway to his mouth. “Damaged? Damaged how?” His forehead, already furrowed, creased more and more deeply with each description Hitsugaya gave him - until the ‘photo album’ was described, at which point he laughed hard enough that he was forced to set his cup down, lest he spill it.

Beside him, Ukitake, though smiling, looked more worried than amused. “Destruction of the archival records is a quite serious offense,” he mused, one long finger tracing the rim of his cup. “And if the sabotage is that clumsy and obviously done, it clearly does not concern the saboteur that we discover his or her efforts. What is the information you were trying to find?”

“The name of an Academy sponsor. Matsumoto’s,” he added, before either man could ask, and Ukitake went very still.

“Jyuu-chan?” Kyouraku said sharply, as Hitsugaya worriedly asked, “Ukitake?”

“I’m fine,” Ukitake answered quickly, waving a hand before him. “However... I don’t believe you’re aware, Toushirou, but whenever I am too ill to leave my bed, I will often ask that paperwork be brought in to me, so that I may occupy myself with something productive. Some of the work I take on is general admissions forms from the Academy.”

The wave of incredulity struck Hitsugaya full-force. Certainly it couldn’t be this easy.... “You didn’t...?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Ukitake answered, a deep frown etching lines in his usually jovial face. “I recalled it because there was a note on the application, stating that she was a childhood friend of Ichimaru’s, and he had suggested she might be quite talented.”

“Ichimaru was only a third-seat when Rangiku joined the Academy, though. Certainly he didn’t sponsor her?”“No, no,” Ukitake sighed, setting his cup down. “Gin recommended her, but she was sponsored by someone else entirely.”

The niggling sensation in Hitsugaya’s stomach twisted into a stabbing pain of anxiety as the suspicions that had been lurking in his mind burst to the forefront. 

“Matsumoto Rangiku was sponsored by the then-Captain of the Fifth Division, one Captain Aizen Sousuke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this chapter seemed to spend most of its time going in circles... I assure you, this is actually leading somewhere! Just bear with, please, and relax - right now, Hitsugaya is just as confused as you are.


	5. Smoke and Silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of background in this chapter, and I apologize in advance for the fact that there will be multiple flashbacks, including flashbacks-in-flashbacks. If it must be blamed on somebody, blame it on Nic Cage and his movie Next, which I watched a few days before initially writing his chapter. While a very enjoyable movie, it does have a mildly - or extremely, depending on your opinion of temporal paradoxes - disorienting effect on the viewer. I apologize if this chapter causes the same difficulties!
> 
> Continued major deviation from Kubo's plot here, since this was all written before the Quincy Blood War arc.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Angst and tobacco use. Ichigo continuing to be an insensitive lunkhead. (Required PSA: The author of this work does not in any way condone or encourage smoking or the use of tobacco. Smoking and chewing of tobacco has been clearly linked to cancer, asthma, and general nasty odors. Furthermore, commentary and opinions expressed by characters are their own and do not necessarily reflect the feelings of the author.)

There were eight guests at Ishida and Orihime’s wedding.

Ichigo and Rukia were there, of course. Renji, whom Uryuu was almost willing to call a friend after the events of Hueco Mundo, had been invited, and the presence of Rukia and Renji meant Byakuya came along more-or-less by default. Keigo, Mizuiro, and Tatsuki joined at Orihime’s insistence, and Kurosaki Isshin rounded off the group. 

Urahara and Yoroichi had been invited - for the sake of politeness more than actual desire for their presence, on Uryuu’s part at least - but both of them claimed previous obligations. Yoroichi had been telling the truth; Urahara most likely had not been, but it was a convenient lie for everyone involved. Both Orihime and Uryuu had expressed the desire for a quiet, simple ceremony - although with the chaos of Rukia and Ichigo’s ‘second marriage’ fresh in everyone’s minds, perhaps that wasn’t as surprising as it should have been.

The second ceremony, held in the Seireitei for the sole purpose of appeasing the Kuchiki Clan Elders - they had refused to travel to the Living World for the actual ceremony - had taken under an hour to degenerate into a fiasco of epic proportions. 

When the guest list was considered, though, that was not remotely surprising. Every Captain and Vice-Captain in the Gotei was in attendance, up to and including Yamamoto himself. Added to that already-volatile mixture was the entire compliment of the Visoreds - Hiyori included, head held high despite her lost powers - two dozen Kuchiki Elders, and, much to the astonishment of the crowd, Kukaku and Ganju of the fallen Shiba Clan.

__________________________________________________________________

_Silence rippled across the room like waves across a still pond, before the shocked gasps and disbelieving whispers tore into the air, dozens of wide eyes pinned to the open doorway of the meeting hall._

_Ichigo, stunned mute and motionless, could only stare openmouthed at the two figures still standing in the doorway, until a gentle hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie._

_Turning, he looked into Ukitake’s kind eyes, reading the silent question in them, and nodded slowly in response._

_“I’m okay,” he managed, feeling Rukia’s warmth against his other side, her surprisingly strong hand encircling his own. “I’m okay.”_

_Before his wedding, if you had asked Ichigo to name the most monumental day in his life, it would have been the day he surrendered captaincy of the Third Division to Kira Izuru. He chose to remember the day for that event, because thinking of it any other way -_

‘A Shinigami Captain,’ Kyouraku said, face musing but his eyes angry -

‘Masaki’s father was the King of the Soul Society.... and that puts you in the position of Heir.’ Isshin, voice steady, his own eyes pleading as Ichigo stared at him, the heartbreak clear in his gaze as Ichigo wordlessly pushed back from the table and stormed from the house.

_It had taken Ichigo three days to seek out Ukitake, who had greeted him with tea and photo albums, and let Ichigo page through them until he found himself staring at a distorted mirror-image of himself, black-haired and dark-eyed, smiling fiercely at the camera._

_“This.... this is Kaien, isn’t it?” he’d whispered, and Ukitake had leaned across his desk to study the picture before nodding._

_“Yes. You do look remarkably like him, although his build was much stockier. You both inherited Isshin’s features, but your build and coloring obviously take after your mother.” Saying that, he’d sat back, sipped his tea, and calmly waited as the information slowly sank through Ichigo’s mind._

_Ukitake had endured the following explosion of temper without batting an eye, quietly shielding Ichigo’s turbulent, explosive reiatsu with his own and humming softly beneath his breath while the young man ranted the furious pain of his father’s deception until his knees fell out from under him, at which point Ukitake quietly handed him another cup of tea and told Ichigo about the Isshin he had once known._

_Ichigo had come away from the meeting with a new respect for his father, even if years more would pass before he forgave Isshin for the history of lies he’d heaped upon his family - families, rather. Because Ichigo now knew he had a half-brother and half-sister; Ganju and Kukaku of the Shiba Clan._

_If nothing else, it explained his father’s love of the fireworks festivals._

____________________________________________________________

_Staring across the meeting hall of the Kuchiki manor, Ichigo had met Kukaku’s eyes._

_Rudely dressed in a brilliant-red kimono, the woman had set her hand on her cocked hip, lifted her chin, and smirked at him. “Hey there, little brother.”_

_The uproar had been instantaneous._

_In the end, it had fallen on Yoroichi and Ukitake to round up the crowd of babbling, incredulous Kuchiki Elders, and Renji, his parade-ground voice at full force, somehow became responsible for talking sense into the clustered nobles. How the task had landed on Renji’s shoulders, Ichigo was not remotely certain, but what was more surprising was that they listened._

_Within the first minute of Renji speaking, every Elder in the worried cluster had been reassured that Rukia was not within the direct line of succession, and any children she bore that the Clan did not find suitable need not be granted a Clan title; and that the reverse was also true. The Shiba family, despite being stripped of their noble titles and power, were still a clan known to have produced incredibly powerful warriors - “And who exemplifies this better than Kurosaki?” Byakuya had muttered, the words echoed by Renji a beat later._

_Even though being the grandson of the Soul King would probably have granted him enough status to please even the Kuchiki Elders, the bloodline of Ichigo’s mother remained a secret, closed behind the lips of the few who knew the truth of it. Like Renji, however, Ichigo’s directness and courage would earn him the respect of the Clan Elders within a few short years._

_It was, unfortunately, that same directness and courage that had a tendency to get Ichigo - as well as members of his family - into a great deal of trouble._

_Despite it being her first visit to the Seireitei, Ichigo’s sister Karin seemed quite comfortable mingling with the crowd. Most of the Shinigami who had been based in Karakura for any length of time were able to recognize her, at least in passing, and Rukia, Renji, Hitsugaya and Matsumoto were all on a first-name basis with the girl._

_Which did not, unfortunately, help matters any when Karin noticed a severely-annoyed Hitsugaya attempting to ignore the persistent attention of a certain pink-haired Eleventh Division Lieutenant. Stepping towards them, Karin made her best attempt at looking sympathetic and maternal as she met Yachiru’s eyes and asked, gently, if perhaps the little girl’s parents weren’t looking for her, and maybe she should go back to them and stop bothering Toushirou-san?_

_Matsumoto, lingering near her Captain, had dissolved into laughter, while Yachiru and Hitsugaya gained identical incredulous expressions._

_“You really need to stop judging by appearances,” Hitsugaya had muttered under his breath, as Yachiru turned both her full attention and full volume on the well-meaning Karin, informing the girl quite forcefully that she could do whatever she wanted because her Ken-chan let her, all the while quite neglecting to mention that she was actually a ranking Gotei officer and not simply a young child._

_It hadn’t taken a great deal of that to attract Kenpachi, who generally lingered in the fringes of his adoptive daughter’s ring of influence out of habit. His growled “what’s going on here?” had utterly failed to impress Karin, who folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head back enough to glare at the mountainous man for the space of two heartbeats, before launching into an abrupt and startlingly comprehensive assessment of his abilities as a parent - largely focusing on his failure in allowing Yachiru to become so painfully spoiled._

_Sheer astonishment had left the mouths of everyone within earshot gaping; a few people recovered themselves enough to dissolve into near-hysterical laughter, at the dumbfounded expression on Kenpachi’s face if nothing else._

_It was at that point he’d told Karin to mind her own fucking business, and she’d kicked him in the kneecap for swearing in front of a child._

_Ichigo’s sister or not, the indignant anger Zaraki felt when her no-longer-dainty foot landed squarely against the bottom of his patella was quite enough to have him reaching for her neck, fully intent on snapping the thin bone in one hand -_

_until Unohana Retus’s delicate hand settled itself on his forearm._

_“Kenpachi,” Unohana said, her voice as soft and delicate as ever, and the scarred hand dropped back to Zaraki’s side without even a consideration of protest._

_Ichigo and Renji, two of those watching the entire affair take place - Ichigo with one hand on the hilt of Zangetsu, ready to move forward the instant he felt his sister was in danger - exchanged mutually stunned glances._

_“Just like that, and -”_

_“How did she -”_

_“It’s ‘cause Braidy-Lady owns Ken-chan’s balls,” Yachiru piped up from the general vicinity of their knees. Despite the point of origin, her voice was quite clear enough to carry throughout the entire Hall. “When Braidy-Lady is happy, Ken-chan says she and he have balls-to-the-walls nights, but when she’s mad he says she gives him blue balls, ‘cept I’ve never seen any -”“YACHIRU!” It probably wasn’t possible for a man of Kenpachi’s reputation and appearance to look mortified, but that didn’t stop him from making a valiant effort to do so._

_“Perhaps this is not the venue for a discussion of that particular nature, Yachiru,” Unohana said calmly, a hint of a smile creasing her kind eyes at the corners. Several men in her immediate proximity immediately broke into a cold sweat of fear._

_Yachiru, for her part, shrugged faintly, blew an impressive raspberry at Karin and declared her a ‘brat! quite loud enough for half the mansion to hear, then scurried to Zaraki’s side and swarmed up the length of his kimono to settle on his shoulder._

_Without another word, the trio bowed their goodbyes and threaded their way out of the hall. Most of the guests valued their lives enough not to laugh until the door shut again and Kenpachi wouldn’t be able to identify their snickers._  
_____________________________________________________________

_Beyond the Kenpachi incident, the ceremony went off reasonably well, leaving the reception to start on a high note._

_It ended on what might have been a much higher one - as high, in fact, as a wedding cake could fly with the assistance of a small firework jammed into it._

_Which was, as it turned out, pretty damned high._

_Hands on his hips, Ichigo stared up at the cake-splattered ceiling and wondered exactly how the hell Byakuya’s cleaning staff was going to manage this one._

___________________________________________________________________

Uryuu and Orihime’s wedding was taking place at the Shoten, which did seem to be ‘the default gathering place for our merry band of fools,’ as Uryuu so affectionately put it. Even though it was now under the control of Hirako Shinji and Muguruma Kensei - the latter of whom everyone would have quite willingly voted ‘Least Likely to Operate a Candy Store’ - the Urahara Shoten had retained the name, cheap candy and obscure black-market Soul Society technology that had defined it under the original ownership. It had also remained, as Uryuu remarked, the default gathering place for their group, whether it was for training, strategizing sessions or weddings. 

His mind elsewhere, Ichigo roamed through the shop on autopilot, coming to an abrupt stop when he realized he was standing at the back door with no clear memory of crossing the intervening space. He could feel the low, steady thrum of Uryuu’s energy coming from the other side, though - oddly, while Hitsugaya’s and Rukia’s energies both smelled of varying forms of mint, it was Uryuu’s that smelled like snow.

Sighing softly, Ichigo rolled the door back and slipped onto the back porch, stifling an immediate cough in his sleeve as a wisp of smoke caught itself in his nose. 

Two strides away, Uryuu leaned against the wooden pillar of the porch, one knee cocked so that his toe rested on the plank floor. His suit - handmade, of course, and pristinely white with deep navy trim - hadn’t so much as wrinkled, despite the heat of the day and his uncharacteristic slump against the wood.

“Bad for you, you know.”

Long fingers, hidden behind white silk gloves, lifted the cigarette away from the thin-lipped mouth to permit the rejoinder to escape on a stream of smoke. “Most of the habits I’ve picked up from my father are.”

Scowling, Ichigo crossed the porch with heavy strides and settled his back against the other post, standing opposite Ishida and deliberately mimicking the other’s posture, although minus the cigarette. “Maybe you should consider picking up fewer of his habits.”

A noncommittal noise answered him, followed by a thin stream of smoke blown deliberately towards his face. Ichigo waved it away in annoyance, trying to weigh the young Quincy’s mood for a long moment before giving up and asking his question anyway. 

“Why isn’t he here?” The words were low, as gentle as Ichigo could make them, but Uryuu’s eyes narrowed sharply behind his glasses all the same.

“You mean Ryuuken?”

“Who else? He’s your father, Uryuu. He should be here for you! Quincy pride and Shinigami and whatever the hell else has come between you, a father should still be there for his own son’s wedding!”

Uryuu snorted in disgust, a few narrow wisps of smoke curling from his nostrils as he did so. It was the only time Ichigo could remember that Uryuu’s first name - ‘Rain Dragon’ - actually seemed suitable. 

“My father, Ichigo, has spent my entire lifetime making his opinion of me quite clear. I am, and always have been, an unwanted intrusion into his life.” 

As Ichigo jerked back, appalled, Uryuu merely drew another drag off the cigarette, exhaling the smoke slowly before he continued. “My grandfather, Ishida Souken - my Master when I was first learning the Quincy arts - always had the best interests of the Quincy Clan at heart, even above and beyond those of his own son. He was the one who ordered Ryuuken to marry and insisted he produce an heir to carry on the bloodlines of our people.”

Ichigo winced. Try as he might, he couldn’t help Byakuya’s eyes from surfacing in his memory - his eyes the first night Ichigo had seen them, grey as stone and twice as heartless, ordering his own sister to her death.

“Ryuuken wanted no part of an arranged marriage, but in the end, he bowed to his father’s wishes.” The cigarette raised, tip burning dully once again, and the next words escaped on a gust of exhaled smoke. “It was the last time he would ever do so. The day I was born, Ryuuken turned his back on everything it meant to be a Quincy. And from that moment, he never once forgave Souken - or me.”

“But... why?” Ichigo managed, aghast, as Uryuu lifted the cigarette to check how much of it was left. Frowning slightly, he stubbed the burning end out on the porch rail before turning back to Ichigo.

“Kurosaki, my father is not... inclined towards women. Although there were other reasons he resented my Grandfather’s interference, that was likely the primary one.”

“Your dad -” stopping short, Ichigo shook his head like a dog coming out of water. “Fuck, am I the only guy around here who’s completely straight?”

Affront straightened Uryuu’s spine with an audible pop. “Excuse me!”

Ichigo merely blinked at him. “Excuse you, what?”

“Kurosaki, you seem entirely too intent on slandering my orientation!”

A snort. “It’s not slander when it’s true, Uryuu. I was at that party that the Gotei hosted, after the War ended.”

Uryuu’s pale face abruptly went several shades redder, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “What you saw was -”

“What I saw was you and Renji. Kissing.” A brief pause, then, “Does Byakuya know?”

“Honestly, Kurosaki!” Beet-red by now, Ishida took half a step forward, looking intent on smacking his companion across the side of the head, then thought the better of it, sighed hugely, and slumped back against his post. “To answer the last first, yes, Kuchiki knows. He was there, as I’m sure you’ll remember. And what you saw was a rather inebriated Abarai Renji, who was in extremely high spirits given that we’d all _survived_ that miserable War, kissing me. I was not, as you might recall, an active or encouraging partner.”

“You weren’t objecting, either.”

“And how, precisely, was I supposed to react? I was too stunned to respond until the kiss was over in any case, at which time it was a moot point,” he huffed, shoving at his glasses.

When Ichigo just stared at him, blank-faced, Uryuu sighed faintly, slumping down a little farther against the wooden support. “Abarai and I.... we fought Szayel-Aporro Grantz in Hueco Mundo, Ichigo, and Grantz was every bit as much of a madman as Kurotsuchi. The battle nearly killed us more times than I can count. It’s not the sort of experience a person can go through without having some sort of bond with the person experiencing it with them.” 

“Battlefield brotherhood?” Ichigo offered, and Uryuu shrugged slightly in response. 

“As drunk as Abarai was that night, I also suspect there might have been some mistaken identity involved. Kuchiki and I are not remarkably dissimilar....”

“If you ignore the three inches of height difference,” Ichigo smirked, and the expression broadened to a grin at Uryuu’s glare. While Ichigo had gone through multiple growth spurts - physical as well as spiritual - in the past years, and now stood nearly eye-to-eye with Renji, Uryuu had gained very little height from when Ichigo had first met him.

“Intoxication, Kurosaki, can make many things seem entirely relative.” Seeing Ichigo open his mouth - no doubt preparing to ask when Ishida had been drunk enough for someone’s identity to seem ‘entirely relative,’ Uryuu quickly cut in. “What, exactly, is this sudden fixation on people’s sexuality springing from, Kurosaki? Certainly you’re not bored with Rukia already?”  
“No!” Ichigo snapped, vehemently enough that Uryuu rocked backwards and smacked his head on the post. “It’s got nothing to do with Rukia,” Ichigo added, his tone more subdued, when Uryuu raised a questioning eyebrow, rubbing the back of his head. 

“Then where are your issues stemming from, pray tell?”

The glare that was leveled at Uryuu left the Quincy fighting a smirk, as Ichigo shook his head and sighed, slumping a little against his porch pillar. “It’s actually.... well, when Kyouraku and Ukitake were at the house, just before Kira took command of the Third... Some of what they said and just... there was something.... _weird_ going on. Between the three of them,” he added, when Uryuu looked perplexed. 

“Between... all three of them?” Uryuu repeated, blinking a few times at the thought. “That’s.... somewhat unusual. Does it bother you?”

“What are you, a psychiatrist?” Ichigo snapped, then, “No. Or, not really. I’m not homophobic, Ishida - hell, I was one of the ones pushing Kira and Shuuhei to hook up! - and I know polyamory is real, it's fine, but... it’s my _Dad_ that I’m talking about, and that’s just....” Breaking off, Ichigo shook his head with a grimace. “Weird.”

“What’s weird?” came a deep voice from the door of the Shoten, and both of Ishida and Ichigo jumped sharply, spinning to face the source of the voice. 

“Chad?” Ichigo said, his voice a little sharper and higher than usual, and the big man slowly rolled back the door, dark eyes peering at Ichigo from under the fringe of his bangs. Seated on his shoulder, a little green plush turtle in a miniature tuxedo shirt and pants raised one green felt hand in silent acknowledgement. 

“Yo, Nova,” Ichigo said, a bit weakly.

“How can you move so quietly?” Ishida demanded of Chad, and received only a shrug in reply.

“People don’t listen,” the modsoul offered, shrugging a little. 

“And you were busy with your own conversation,” Chad added, duplicating the shrug on a much larger scale. Nova had one hand tucked into Chad’s shirt collar to help him maintain his balance on the shifting stone that was Chad’s shoulder. 

When Urahara had returned to Seireitei, the three modsouls who had been hanging about the Shoten had split off and gone their separate ways. With Kon already occupying Ichigo’s room and body, Ririn had elected to follow Urahara to the Soul Society. Blatantly ignoring the old laws ordering the immediate destruction of all battle-modified gikongan, he had quite cheerfully refitted her gigai and kept her on as part of his ‘staff,’ with the same duties as Jinta and Ururu - which was to say, none. 

Kurodo had returned to Orihime’s apartment, and spent the months following the War talking the girl through the horrors of her nightmares. Orihime took comfort in having another living being in the house when her friends could not be there - there were only so many sleepovers one could realistically have - and Kurodo was quite happy to be of help. 

Chad and Nova had never even discussed the matter - when told Urahara was leaving the shop, Chad had simply scooped up the quiet soul on his way out of the Shoten that night. The pair probably never exchanged more than ten words in a given day, but they were friends, and that, in Ichigo’s mind, was all that mattered.

“They sent me out to get you,” Chad explained, a slight tip of his head towards the Shoten meaning that the ‘they’ probably consisted of the rest of the wedding party. “Everything’s ready.”

Nodding slightly, Uryuu pushed himself up off the pillar and straightened his gleaming white suit. “Thank you, Sado,” he answered levelly, tugging at the thin gloves that hid the battle-scars marking his hands. 

Dark eyes settled on him, startlingly intense behind the veil of cocoa-brown hair. “You’re happy, Uryuu?”

Long fingers paused in the middle of fretting with the gloves, and Uryuu blinked once, slowly, as though he hadn’t truly considered the question. A heartbeat went by before he nodded, his eyes thoughtful. “I’m marrying the woman of my dreams,” he answered softly. “Until now, we’ve survived. But as of today, I can begin to live.” Raising his head, Uryuu met Chad’s eyes squarely as he answered. “Today is the greatest day of my life, and there is nothing that could make it better.”

_________________________________________________________________

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Ishida Ryuuken glanced at the clock on his office wall and frowned. 

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The scratching of a pen on paper almost obscured the steady rhythm of the clock as Ryuuken slashed his signature across the bottom of the requisition form in front of him, but as soon as the tip of the pen lifted, the sound of the clock began throbbing against his ears again. 

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Another folder, this one marked with a red tab that meant surgical records, was pulled from the corner of his desk and opened, pen once again in hand, but there were no notes that needed to be made.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The red-tabbed folder went back on the pile, a green-tabbed one - green for financials - taking its place, but it was an accounting summary, nothing requiring notation or signatures. 

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The green-tabbed folder went back on the pile, and Ryuuken dropped his head into his hands, silver hair falling forward over his long fingers, brushing over the sensitive skin and the half-numb lines of old scars. 

_Tick. Tock. Tick-CRUNCH._

Scowling, Ryuuken lowered his arm and allowed the gleaming bow in his hand to disperse. The blue-white arrow gleamed brightly from the ruins of the clock for another blessedly silent second, until Ryuuken drew the particles of energy back within himself. 

In the absence of the clock’s voice, the memory of Kurosaki Isshin’s rang painfully loud. 

_Heavy fists slammed down on the edge of Ryuuken’s desk. “Dammit, Ryuuken, he’s your son! He’s the only blood family you have left!”_

_“Reminding me of your greater blessings will not help your case, Isshin,” came the frigid retort, dark eyes flashing behind narrow-framed glasses._

_“I’d think it would,” Isshin snapped back. “I’ve watched Ichigo marry, and I still have the opportunity to watch Karin and Yuzu marry. You’re only going to get this one chance, Ryuuken.”_

_“And you believe I should set aside the last twenty years and go watch my son seize an opportunity I was never granted?” Ryuuken snapped, shoving out of his seat and leaning forward, nose-to-nose with the bigger man. His voice lowered with every word he spoke, until there was no more tone to it, just a furious, agonized snarl. “You want me to watch as he is allowed to marry the person he loves, and ignore the fact I was forced into a loveless marriage simply to grant that ungrateful child his conception? You want me to forget that I was forced to watch the person I love walk away?”_

_Two sets of dark eyes bored into each other until, sighing, Isshin finally looked away. Bitterly vindicated, Ryuuken dropped back into his seat, drawing a folder across the desk as the Shinigami slowly settled himself back into the visitor’s chair he’d been in._

_“The past is exactly that, Ryuuken. We’re supposed to learn from it, not enslave ourselves to it. We have all of our futures ahead of us,” Isshin said softly, reaching one hand carefully across the desk. Ryuuken slapped it away, the sharp tip of his pen digging into the skin of Isshin’s palm. The bigger man recoiled with a hiss, cradling his hand for a moment as he watched the few beads of blood appear._

_“Heh,” he muttered, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket to blot at the crimson droplets. “You always hurt the ones -”_

_“Finish that thought, and that scratch will be the least of your worries,” Ryuuken warned, and Isshin snapped his mouth shut._

_Not meeting Ryuuken’s eyes, he silently summoned the glowing energy of a healing kidou to the tip of his finger, tracing it along the shallow gash in his palm and leaving the callused skin unmarked in its wake. Frowning thoughtfully, he flexed his hand slowly, testing the healing. Apparently satisfied, he pushed himself out of his seat, turning his gaze back to the silent man behind the desk._

_“He’s your son, Ryuuken. If you love him, you should want his happiness.”_

_Without another word, Isshin turned and left the office, his footsteps silent on the heavy carpet. It wasn’t until the door closed behind him that the silver-haired Quincy looked up again._

_The handkerchief, dots of blood a silent and coded accusation, had been left on the corner of his desk._

_‘You always hurt the ones...’_

______________________________________________________________________

Seizing his coat from the rack by the door, Ryuuken swept out of his office.

____________________________________________________________________

It was a beautifully warm, sunny day, and the clear air had tempted many families to the small park near Karakura General Hospital. A few people jogged the smooth cement pathways, long practice enabling them to dodge slower walkers, mothers with strollers, and the occasional dog and owner without ever losing the rhythm of the music on their mp3 players. 

None of them saw anything unusual about the brown-haired toddler sitting beneath one of the spreading trees, prodding at the dirt beneath him with a twig while his mother, a lovely young woman with long, wavy brown hair and tired eyes, sat on a bench a few feet away, her eyes constantly flickering between her young son and the book in her lap.

The soil where the boy was sitting was loose, grainy; he poked the stick he held into a little pile of dirt before him and blinked in surprise when a handful of ants spilled from the top of it, scuttling back and forth as they attempted to repair the damage to their hill. 

Curious, the boy dug deeper. More and more ants appeared the deeper he dug, and the insects became more and more frantic as he opened the interior of their nest to the bright air. One ant, much larger than the others, lay enthroned in a small chamber, the white shapes of her eggs about her.

Brown eyes, still wide with the innocence of childhood, narrowed in thought. 

The stick clutched in one still-chubby hand poked forward, crushing the ant queen to death beneath its fractured end.

Sitting back, the boy watched silently as the ant colony dissolved into chaos.

_____________________________________________________________________

The sleek silver Porsche eased out of the hospital’s parking garage with a low rumble of the engine. Keeping the pressure on the accelerator light - it did not do to speed down these crowded streets - Ryuuken drove slowly past the park outside the hospital, his attention on the vehicles around him. When a bicyclist flashed by outside of his passenger-side window, though, he flicked his eyes towards the motion for a split-second before turning them back to the road.

Then, frowning, he glanced back. A brown-haired child, perhaps two years old, blinked at him from within the shadow cast by one of the enormous old trees that edged the park. There was nothing to mark the child as unusual in any way - just another little brat playing in the dirt - but somehow, Ryuuken felt an ugly shiver of fear course up his spine. 

_‘Absurdity,’_ he thought to himself, turning his attention back to the road and forcefully putting the child from his mind. 

________________________________________________________________

The drive across Karakura was not a hard one - he’d made the trip from his fine hospital to this dusty, run-down little corner in the Mitsumiya district more times than he cared to count or admit, on the nights when he could no longer stand the silence of his house and the echoes within his mind. Here, in this little shop, there had always been an understanding ear and a bottle of good sake, no matter how grudgingly it was poured. That had changed when Kisuke left; the Visoreds did not trust him, nor he them; which was not to say he necessarily had trusted Kisuke, either, but the scientist had been something close enough to a friend. 

Pulling the Porsche into the dusty patch of land ostensibly serving as a front yard, Ryuuken sighed faintly, staring at the unprepossessing structure for a long moment.

_‘We’re supposed to learn from it, not enslave ourselves to it. We have all of our futures ahead of us.’_

Sighing, Ryuuken yanked his parking brake into place, shut the car off, and got out.  
________________________________________________________________

His face expressionless, Uryuu knelt silently beside his soon-to-be wife, his eyes fixed on the gleaming silver sansankudo set - property of the Kuchiki House, crafted especially for the ceremony that joined Byakuya and Renji, it had later been used to join Ichigo and Rukia. Byakuya himself had offered its use for Uryuu and Orihime’s ceremony. _"A good precedent," the noble had said, his own slender hand caught in Renji’s broad one, "as this set has tied the bonds of two strong couples now. I see no reason why the strength and joy it brings to unions should not be shared."_

On his knees before the delicate cups of silver, Uryuu bowed his head and exhaled a silent prayer. Nanao, the forgotten sister, had been there to watch Byakuya’s wedding. Ichigo’s half-siblings had presented themselves at his. 

As Orihime’s gentle hand found his own, Uryuu closed his eyes and wished for his family.

______________________________________________________________________

The sound of the door at the back of the room sliding open startled everyone. 

As all eyes settled on him, Ishida Ryuuken frowned slightly, the light splintering off of his glasses hiding the expression in his eyes. 

“R-Ryuuken?” 

Uryuu’s stunned whisper drew Ryuuken’s attention to the front of the room, where his son knelt beside a wide-eyed young woman. Her hair, long enough to sweep the ground as she sat seiza, was the color of warmth and sun, looking so alien against the world Uryuu had built around himself, one of blue and white and cold loneliness. A world, Ryuuken realized, that looked entirely too much like the one he had been living in for the past decades. 

_‘Learn from it. We have our whole futures ahead of us.’_

“I hope I’m not late,” Ryuuken said, hoping his voice did not betray the awkwardness he felt. 

For the first time in years, Uryuu felt a genuine smile break across his face. “No, Father. You’re right on time.”


	6. Swords and Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE ON TIMELINE: This chapter actually takes place six months _previous_ to chapter five, _Smoke and Silver_ , picking up immediately after chapter four, _Paper and Stone_ , left off of Renji and Byakuya’s day in Rukongai. Hitsugaya’s sections are taking place about a week later.
> 
>  
> 
> Translator’s Notes:  
> Haru: Unisex name, in this case meaning ‘spring.’   
> Ko: Unisex name, in this case meaning ‘peace.’  
> Michi: Unisex name meaning ‘pathway.’  
> Hiro: Unisex name in this case meaning ‘generous’ or ‘tolerant.’  
> Kyo: Unisex name in this case meaning ‘village.’  
> Tsutomu: Male name meaning ‘worker.’  
> Junrinan: Rukongai District One, where Hitsugaya and Hinamori grew up.
> 
> Warnings: Violence. Very brief flashback to and mention of dubious/non-consensual violence in a sexual situation. Mention of underage prostitution.

“They’re Shinigami.”

“Don’ be stupid,” came the responding hiss, barely audible and still several degrees louder than the whisper it answered. 

A sharp glare answered that, but he merely shook his head at her “Everyone knows they only let nobles be Shinigami! An’ ain’t no way the red one’s a noble, not with those marks!”

“Are you deaf as well as blind?” she whispered back, eyes flashing. “Everyone knows about the swordsman from Zaraki -”

His snort of contempt was loud enough that they both froze, afraid that the two figures kneeling over the graves had heard it. When neither the black-haired one - either a handsome woman or a pretty man, he couldn’t tell from that distance - nor the red-haired one, who was a taller man than either of them had ever seen - looked around, he turned half his attention back to her in aggravation. “Stupid!” he hissed again, ignoring her increasingly angry glare. “Those’re jus’ stories that the Shinigami spread, tryin’ t’ make ‘emselves sound better! B’sides, you’d never see a Shinigami layin’ grave goods, they only come down here if they gotta kill someone or buy ‘em!”

That earned him a look of resigned contempt. “You’ve been listening to Michi again,” she sighed, shaking her head. 

“An’ what if I have?” he hissed back, defiant as he could be with a branch sticking into his ear. “He knows -”

“He knows the way to the bottom of a bottle,” she interrupted crossly, eyes narrowing as dark-haired figure knelt beside the first of the graves and straightened again, leaving a stick of smoking incense in the ground. “There, you see?”

“See what?” came the annoyed half-growl in response, as he tried to wrestle the sharp-edged branch away from his head without undue noise. 

“He just lit the incense with magic, so he has to be a Shinigami,” came the level reply, and he spun back in time to see both figures straightening up, the incense already in place, and the tall redhead rolling up the heavy sack they had brought the food-offerings in. 

“Liar,” he muttered under his breath, and winced faintly when she spun on him, the noise of her movement covered by the redhead’s sudden laughter as he pulled the dark-haired one into a hug. 

“I am not lying, you half-brained excuse for a gutter rat!” The whisper was shrill, and both of them froze again, wide eyes shooting to the blessedly retreating pair on the far side of the clearing. The redhead had his arm slung around the dark-haired one’s shoulders, and they walked easily together down the path, neither one giving any indication that they had heard the two children.

“One ‘a these days, you’re gonna get us killed,” he sighed weakly, before seizing her wrist and dragging her out of the bush behind him, heading for the food the two visitors had left. 

______________________________________________________________________

“Don’ exactly wait long, do they?” Abarai Renji smiled softly, his arm a warm weight around Byakuya’s shoulders. With a near-silent hum in response, the noble turned his head just enough to catch a glimpse of the two children from the corner of his eye. 

They were both young; younger than Rukia by half a century if he was any judge, painfully thin, barefoot and wearing tattered yukata. Both were brown-haired; the girl’s dark and neatly braided while the boy’s was light and fell in hopeless snarls across the back of his neck. 

As Byakuya’s eyes flicked over her, the girl raised her head with a frown, arms already laden with the food from the graves. Lavender eyes met dark, holding for a split-second before Byakuya’s still-steady pace down the road brought the edge of the hill between them.

_________________________________________________________________

Eyes wide, she fell back to her knees, shaking so badly that the food she’d gathered spilled from her arms and onto the barely-visible rise of dirt beneath her. Her brother’s voice, sharp and angry, fell on deaf ears as she curled over her knees, body trembling in terror at the strength in the Shinigami’s gaze.

________________________________________________________________

The walk back into Inuzuri proper was not a long one; the cliffside where Renji’s friends were buried overlooked the clustered mass of ill-repaired houses and crooked streets, distance making some of the district’s ugliness a little less evident. As they grew closer, though, the ugly details became clear in short order. 

First to strike them was the stench; a mingling of molding refuse, open midden-pits, and unwashed bodies, all underscored by the sour scent of desperation and fear. Byakuya grimaced at the scent, taking shallow breaths and struggling not to cough. 

It was not the first time he had been to Inuzuri - he and Hisana had not exactly met at a tea party, after all! - but over the past years it had been all to easy to forget the squalor that dominated the sector. 

Renji, his arm still steady on Byakuya’s shoulders, glanced down at the other man. “Y‘ a’right?” he asked softly, and Byakuya raised an eyebrow at the weight of the accent in the other man’s voice.

“My condition is satisfactory.” A pause, not quite hesitant, because he knew his partner now too well to hesitate. “Yours?” 

Renji didn’t answer for a moment, although his walk never slowed. “ ‘s just... weird, comin’ back here. ‘s not like I left b’hind anythin’ that mattered, but...”

“ ‘A man’s history is not easily dismissed.’ ”

“ ‘Nor his future easily foreseen,’ ” Renji smiled, finishing the old proverb. “Hells, that’s the truth! If someone’d told me fifty years ago what I’d be t’day...”

Raising his hand, Byakuya gently wrapped his fingers around the heavy hand draped over his shoulder. “Do not think of it. You are what you have become, and that is all that matters. At this moment, our goal is to give any gifted children of this district the same hope that you seized.”

__________________________________________________________________

“How much?”

The low, harsh voice dragged Renji out of his unfocused contemplation of the dust-choked street, his attention - focused far outward in the search for untrained reiatsu signatures - snapping back to _then_ and _there_. The man who stood blocking their path was big enough that he’d have given even Zaraki pause - if the mad Captain had possessed a grain of sense, anyway - and ugly enough to give Hollows nightmares.

Beside Renji, Byakuya shifted slightly, and Renji’s hand snapped out, wrapping painfully tight around his partner’s delicate wrist before Byakuya could speak. The tekkou had been left behind at the manor, and Renji could feel the slickness of long-healed scars under his fingers as he shifted his grip, silently warning Byakuya not to speak. 

Schooling his face into an expression of blandly disinterested politeness, Renji shook his head slightly, drawing the big man’s attention to himself. “Sorry. Not for sale.”

A vague snort that sounded like a bull preparing to charge. “Lie. Remember you, before those marks.” Bloodshot eyes traced the lines of the tattoos visible on Renji’s forehead and the sides of his neck. “For sale, any night.”

Years spent in the Eleventh allowed Renji to translate the grunted remarks into fully-structured sentences without pausing to think, but the statement itself took him back for a moment. This guy.... remembered Renji, from a half-century before?

A low growl interrupted his bewilderment, as the stranger pointed a finger nearly the thickness of Byakuya’s wrist at Renji. “Remember you, walked streets. Man with cold eyes came. Paid.” A brief pause, before a broad smile revealed a mouth full of blackened, rotting teeth. “Fucked you against wall. Tore your face. Made you bleed.”

____________________________________________________________

_The memory of pain tore across Renji’s mind with such intensity that it left him shaking - pain in his face, scraping the rough wall he’d been forced against, pain in his shoulders where the man gripped him,_ pain -

“Renji!”

Byakuya’s voice was sharp, as close to frantic as Renji had heard it since Hueco Mundo, and that in itself jerked him out of his memories with a shuddering gasp of breath. Lavender eyes searched his own, just a fraction too wide for him to dismiss the worry in his partner’s voice. “I’m all right,” he murmured, slamming the memories aside and back into the dark corners of his mind where he kept all recollections of such pain. 

The eyes narrowed in response, just enough to inform Renji that Byakuya did not believe a word of it, before the rough exhale of the man before them turned their attention away again. 

One massive hand was half-extended towards them, the diseased mouth open in a vicious grin. “Want one night,” the stranger hissed, his dark eyes centering in on Byakuya. “Want make one bleed. Pretty one, fragile one, bruise pretty -” the words broke off with a yelp as Renji pivoted on one heel, snapping a kick that could have shattered stone against the massive wrist.

“Impressive,” Byakuya remarked idly, eyebrows raised, as the man stumbled back with a howl of pain. 

Renji snorted something that might have passed for a laugh, shaking his head slightly. “You’re the one that’s been teaching me hand-to-hand.”

“It is best to have a working knowledge of multiple forms of combat. One cannot always rely on one’s Zanpakutou,” Byakuya retorted, and, ignoring the immediate protests from both of the blade-spirits, glanced over Renji’s shoulder. “However...”

Renji huffed, cursed under his breath, and drew Zabimaru in a flash of ringing steel. 

_____________________________________________________________________

Walking through the streets of Inuzuri, it was common to see the male residents - lean and hard-eyed, having surrendered themselves to the cruelty of their home - lounging in the doorways of the rotting buildings or sprawled across any available, roughly flat surface. And although they would watch any passersby with narrowed gazes, it was rare that any of them would stir from their place for the sake of a stranger. Usually, the only things that could induce the men from their places was the promise of food, sex, or money, though perhaps not in that order. 

Unless a sword was drawn.

That, the cold ring of steel leaving a sheath, was all it took to pull the men to their feet, weapons in their hands and rabid-dog grins of eager anticipation crossing their faces as they ringed the potential fighters, hungry for the excitement of violence and blood.

____________________________________________________________________

A scream tore through the air.

His face set and emotionless, Renji watched with blank eyes as a battered, rusted wakizashi dropped to the dusty ground, landing only a short distance from the hand that had been wielding it seconds before. An arc of blood, brilliant in the midday sun, traced a dark line across the ground.

Still shrieking, the stranger fell back, clutching desperately at the stump of his wrist as he staggered backwards, knocking his way through the circle of gathered men. He’d pulled the short blade from his sleeve when Renji had first kicked him back, and his furious charge had brought him nearly within arm’s reach of the redheaded Captain before Zabimaru had cleaved through his wrist.

Scowling, Renji shifted his stance, his eyes remaining fixed on the man even as he widened his perception to include the others now ringing them. Very slowly, he lowered Zabimaru until the blade’s tip nearly dragged the ground, drops of blood catching the light as they fell. “Not here to fight,” he said sharply, and was answered by a broken chorus of jeering laughter. 

Behind his shoulder, he could feel Byakuya moving, every lean muscle in that slender body coming alive as he prepared to do battle. Even though Senbonzakura had been left back at the manor, Renji felt little concern for Byakuya’s safety; he was one of the few people who had ever dared face the noble Captain in hand-to-hand combat, and even his greater weight and reach couldn’t give him enough advantage to beat Byakuya. Delicate though he may have looked, the smaller man was deadly.

A flash of movement caught his eye, and he raised his blade just in time to deflect the blow aimed at his throat.

______________________________________________________________

Komamura Sajin blinked once and raised his head, ears flicking absently as he looked towards the surge of reiatsu in the distance. 

“Captain?” His fifth seat looked up at him, the skin between his eyebrows creasing slightly. “Is everything all right?”

A low rumble, not quite a growl, echoed from the enormous Captain’s chest as he considered his answer. “No,” he answered finally, his tone considering. “Can you not feel it?”

The fifth seat cocked his head faintly, as though he were struggling to listen to a distant sound. “I don’t sense anything out of the ordinary, Taichou,” the he answered after a moment, his tone apologetic, but Komamura shook his head in response. The pulse of reiatsu was low and distant, but easy enough for him to identify - that particular taste of cinnamon flame could only be Abarai Renji and his Zanpakutou. 

“No matter. Follow me,” he answered, tone steady, and made the leap to Flashstep before most of his patrol could react. Several profanities reached his sensitive ears as his men scrambled after him, leaving District fifty-nine behind them as they moved.

_________________________________________________________________

A blade flashed in the corner of Renji’s perception, and Zabimaru swung to block it before the strike could reach its target, trapping the battered sword and driving its point against the ground. Renji followed up by slamming his shoulder into the man’s exposed side, sending his opponent stumbling away to trip over one of his fallen fellows. The man went down cursing, and two more immediately took his place. 

Zabimaru’s wide arc took down another man with a deep cut to the shoulder as Byakuya kicked his own attacker away, both Shinigami fighting to keep the wounds to their opponents non-lethal. These were not Hollows that they fought, merely desperate and angry men, and they did not deserve death for their actions. 

Unfortunately, the mob surrounding them did not have the same restraint. They were fighting to kill; perhaps hoping that the two might be carrying something of value that they could steal and sell, perhaps recognizing them as the Shinigami that they blamed for all their troubles. 

Perhaps they just wanted something to take their anger out on.

Renji lashed out again, silently cursing the tight-packed crowd that he fought in. Neither his nor Byakuya’s technique was not suited to fighting in confined spaces, and while both of them were holding their own with little difficulty, they were also making very little progress. Snarling, Renji drove Zabimaru forward, the still-sealed blade tearing through the muscles in a thigh before the backswing arched up, cutting across the ribs of another. Behind him, he could sense Byakuya, moving easily through the flurry of attacks as though it was a dance, his every step and shift and blow perfectly choreographed. 

Until a lucky blow by a dagger-wielding opponent who was already on the dirt stabbed into Byakuya’s ankle. 

It took less than a heartbeat for the scent of cherry blossoms to touch the stagnant breeze. 

Renji froze in place, pulled Zabimaru against his chest in a guard position, and watched as the faint glints of light began to appear. 

________________________________________________________________________

 

The offices of the Tenth Division were unusually quiet.

It was not the tense, worried silence that shrouded the barracks whenever the young Captain’s fury was roused, but an oddly peaceful calm that saw the officers moving about the building with faint smiles on their faces as they went about their duties.

Within the Captain’s office, the gentle silence was broken only by the dual whispers of brushes over paper and the occasional rattle of moving parchment. Hitsugaya, ever-present behind his desk, moved through paperwork with his usual rapid efficiency, even the occasional sip of tea taken from the cup at his elbow not breaking his pace. 

On the other side of the room, Matsumoto was, surprisingly, at her own desk, head bent over paperwork. Her brush did not quite match the rapid speed of her Captain’s; she was, after all, far less familiar with the forms she was completing - but moved steadily nonetheless. 

A full week had passed since Hitsugaya had trailed his Lieutenant into Rukongai, bearing witness to the greatest - and perhaps only - secret the woman had ever kept. Six days since he had dragged her over an emotional roller-coaster to force the secret from her, becoming the first Shinigami to learn of Gin and Rangiku’s daughter.

Three days since the papers had arrived back from the Academy, bearing with them a letter of welcome addressed to Matsumoto Kin.

The letter was still sitting on the corner of his desk. 

It would have been perfectly acceptable for him to send it into Rukongai via courier, but Hitsugaya found himself oddly reluctant to leave the news to such an impersonal delivery. 

Part of that might have stemmed from the abrupt change the letter had wrought in his Lieutenant; gone were the complaints and shirking that he had grown so accustomed to in the months before he learned her secret. Although Rangiku still arrived late, still drank and napped during the workday, those bad habits had diminished by an almost alarming degree. Paperwork was actually completed in between much-reduced rounds of sake, the duration of her naps could be calculated in minutes instead of hours, and the entirety of her desk was no longer buried under an avalanche-threat of unfinished work.

Rangiku made a point now of arriving no more than half an hour after she was scheduled to do so - which was quite early by Rangiku standards - and the pair of them worked quietly at the towering stacks of paperwork until lunchtime. They would take a break by wordless agreement, venturing in separate directions for lunch - he to the Mess, she into the city for more entertaining, or perhaps palatable, fare. 

It was after one such lunch that Hitsugaya looked up from finishing the last few sheets of paperwork and asked quietly, “How often do you visit her?”

Matsumoto, at her desk, yelped and jumped slightly at the sound of her Captain’s voice, splattered ink across the paper she’d been working on, swore under her breath, and frantically blotted the page with the sleeve of her shihakusho.

“Matsumoto?”

“Sorry, Captain, you startled me! What was the question, again?”

Biting back the urge to smile, Hitsugaya repeated himself, and received a startled blink of china-blue eyes as his Lieutenant moved the ruined form aside and focused her attention on him.

“I usually visit her twice a week, and I was planning to go down tonight. Would you like to come?”

“I believe,” Hitsugaya answered levelly, glancing briefly at the letter on the corner of his desk, “that I would.”

Genuine for the first time in decades, Matsumoto’s smile lit up the room.

____________________________________________________________

 

When Matsumoto was not drunk and he was not skulking through shadows in her wake, the trip to the twenty-third district had an infinitely more pleasant feel to it. No longer concerned with detection, they made the trip in Flashstep, whittling a two-hour journey down to the merest of minutes. 

Daylight did little to change the complexion of the house; it was still a sound and tidy structure, given its location, and Matsumoto strode to the door without hesitating, Hitsugaya moving silently at her side, his already-light footfalls muffled on the dusty grass.

The echoes of Matsumoto’s knock hadn’t even faded before the door was yanked back, allowing Rei to glower out at the pair of them. Her bleary eyes flicked to Matsumoto first, a sneer curling her upper lip before her gaze flicked down to Hitsugaya. 

“What’s this?” she demanded sharply, glaring at him as though the force of her anger would burn him away. “More of your bastard offspring?”

This close to the old woman, Hitsugaya could smell the scent of opium that clung to her like a rancid veil. Biting his tongue to keep from curling his lip in disgust, Hitsugaya stepped forward, raising a hand to Matsumoto as she opened her mouth to reply.

“I,” he replied with profound dignity, “am Hitsugaya Toushirou, Captain of the Tenth Division of the Thirteen Gotei Squads, wielder of Hyorinmaru.” Deeper within the house, he could hear the startled murmurs breaking out; it was easy enough to hear the words ‘prodigy’ and ‘legend’ among the whispers. 

Rei let out a huff of irritation, turning away from the pair on her doorstep to shout deeper into the room. “They’ve come for you, traitor’s brat! The Shinigami are here to lock you away like they did your father!” The words ended with a cackle of what sounded like cold triumph, and Hitsugaya fought back his own temper as well as Hyorinmaru’s as he pushed through the doorway.

The room was cavernously large by Rukon standards, taking up almost two-thirds of the house’s large bottom floor and nearly equal to the size of Hitsugaya’s own quarters. Although virtually devoid of furniture, it was immaculately clean and brighter than one might have expected, light pouring in through the unshuttered windows. The room’s inhabitants - a dozen children of varying ages - were clustered near the bright windows on a collection of pillows, watching the door with wide eyes.

A few paces away from the rest of the group, Matsumoto Kin sat by herself, black scarf tied securely over her hair and a book in her hand. She had looked up at Rei’s shout, and her gaze turned now to Rangiku, then Hitsugaya, taking in the pristinely white Captain’s haori and the bright gleam of Hyorinmaru’s guard, visible over Hitsugaya’s shoulder. 

There was no fear in her eyes, only the same weary resignation that showed on Rangiku’s face any time Gin’s name was mentioned. Without a word, Kin closed the book and set it aside, rising silently to her feet before offering a deep, polite bow to the two Shinigami. 

Rangiku’s voice was gentle. “Go gather up your things, Kin.”

The girl nodded, still silent, and ducked out the door at the back of the room. Within seconds, her footsteps could be heard dashing up a staircase behind the wall.

Her mouth set, Rangiku turned to the wide-eyed cluster of children still watching them from the far wall. “Please have Kin meet us outside when she comes back down.” 

The oldest of the children - a dark-haired boy with a scar that ran from the corner of his eye all the way to his jaw - caught her eyes and nodded once, sharply. “We’ll tell her, Rangiku-san.”

“Thank you, Hiro,” Rangiku nodded. To Hitsugaya, she added softly, “Come on, Captain. We should wait outside.”

He almost questioned that, until he saw old Rei watching them, her bloodshot eyes narrowed at Matsumoto. The old woman was wearing a black yukata with cyan flowers around the hem; while the robe itself was cotton, the sash tying it around her wide waist was silk. 

Behind Hitsugaya, another one of the children, thin and shy, wearing a yukata too worn for the original pattern to be determined, whispered a half-broken ‘Matsumoto-san?’, and the Lieutenant smiled gently over her shoulder as she crossed the room to the door.

Wordlessly, Hitsugaya turned and followed her back out of the bright, warm room, all but choking on his fury.

_______________________________________________________________

In all his years in the Gotei, Komamura had witnessed the true power of Senbonzakura only twice. 

Even without having witnessed it, though, he would have willingly said that it was as majestic and powerful as any blade within the Thirteen Squads. 

What he had not until now realized, however, was how _precise_ it could be.

Rounding the corner of a derelict building anchoring the corner of an Inuzuri street, he felt his eyes widen at the sight; Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Byakuya, both blood-spattered and sweat-sheened, stood surrounded by the bodies of their fallen foes. At first glance, it looked like the scene of a slaughter, but... none of the men were dead.

Over a hundred defeated men surrounded the two Captains, many of them bleeding from tiny, precise wounds that could only have come from the noble’s blade. 

“Hoy, Komamura-taichou!” Renji called, raising a hand in acknowledgement. Komamura nodded in response, and had half-turned to speak to his fifth-seat when a he caught a flash of movement with the corner of his eye.

One man had apparently hidden himself, out of the way of the fighting, waiting until the battle had died down before he made his move. But he made it now, leaping from with one of the crumbling houses lining the street, naked blade gleaming in his hand as he lunged for the two wearied Shinigami.

There was no hesitation in Renji’s hands; Zabimaru flashed upwards, ready to deal a strike, until -

_Thock._

_Thud._

Renji blinked. Slowly lowered his blade. Blinked again. Stared. Finally, “Who threw that?” he demanded, stepping forward to toe the fist-sized rock that had hurtled from between two buildings to catch the man squarely in the back of the head.

There was a long moment of silence before a girl’s voice, sharp in a whisper, hissed from the shadows, “I _told_ you they were Shinigami!”  
________________________________________________________________

“How can you stand to leave her with that woman?” Hitsugaya demanded as soon as the door was shut behind them. The reek of opium, the rotund body in a virtually-new yukata, while the children stood by, underfed and dressed in castoffs, while Matsumoto and gods knew how many other women sent money to support the children? 

“It may not seem like it, Captain,” Matsumoto answered sadly, “but Rei is the best guardian for these children.”

Disbelief twisted his stomach in a nauseating surge. “How can you say that? How can you even _think_ that?” 

“Captain,” Rangiku began firmly, “you grew up in Junrinan, and you had your grandmother to shelter you. You never had to witness the things that Gin and I did, living in the upper districts. You never saw children left with caretakers at orphanages or children’s homes in good conscience, only to be handed off to workhouses or child brothels.” Eyes flashing, Matsumoto shook her head. “Rei may speak cruelly to the children, but she has never raised a hand against them. The work she has them do is to keep them fed and the house clean and in good repair, nothing more, and when they go to bed at night, it is on their own pallet, not in the hands of some stranger who only wants a child’s body.” 

Matsumoto’s voice broke on the last words, her body trembling at something like remembered pain. Instantly, Hitsugaya clenched his teeth, feeling guilt twist within his stomach. His Lieutenant was one of the few people who could inspire such feelings in him, and he did not relish the sensation. 

“I apologize, Matsumoto. I should not have questioned your judgement in the matter.”

Weary blue eyes lifted to meet his, a tired smile creasing the skin at their corners. “You're hardly the first, Captain.”

“That doesn’t make it any more -”

“Rangiku-san?”

Startled, both Shinigami turned towards the sound of the nervous whisper. 

The child was barely more than a toddler, gender indeterminate beneath an oversized yukata and a good helping of dirt. Huge dark eyes, already swimming with tears, peered out at them from under an unkept fringe of black bangs. The sleeves of the worn grey yukata were long enough to cover the child’s hands, making the grip on the much-repaired stuffed animal awkward and unsure. 

“Kyo-kun,” Matsumoto replied, dropping unhesitatingly to one knee and opening her arms to the child, who scrambled into her grasp and curled against her side, trembling.

“Shinigami gonna.... take Kin-nee-san away, Rangiku-san?” Kyo whispered, as Matsumoto gently stroked the dark head, slowly rocking the child back and forth.

“Let me tell you a secret,” she whispered softly into the child’s ear. “And you can tell all the other kids, but you have to promise that nobody will tell Rei-baa-san, okay?”

“Okay,” came the hiccuped response. “Promise. Tell?”

“We are taking Kin away,” Matsumoto explained softly. “But she’s not going to be punished for what her daddy did. She’s going to go to school, and she’s going to learn to be a Shinigami like me and Hitsugaya-taichou, so that she can be strong and protect people.”

A sniff, and one tattered sleeve came up to wipe across damp eyes. “Really?” the child whispered, eyes wide as - she? - blinked up at Rangiku. “Kin gonna be a Shinigami?”

“Really,” Matsumoto confirmed, nodding gently, and the child considered that for a minute more before wiggling out of Matsumoto’s grasp, turning to face the door of the house. “Hear, Kin? You hear?”

Standing on the threshold of the house, a small, battered pack slung over her shoulder, Matsumoto Kin nodded shakily, tears brimming in her eyes. Too overwhelmed to speak, she gave a single, soft gasp of laughter, the sound one of pure, joyous relief. 

She had her mother’s smile.

_____________________________________________________________________

“...an’ Michi always says that th’ Shinigami are always nobles, an’ they don’ let Rukon trash like us in,” the brown-haired boy (“ ‘m Haru, an’ tha’s m’ sister, Ko,”) explained, scowling darkly under his unkempt hair. 

“Michi’s spending all his time at the bottom of a bottle these days,” Ko countered, the argument long and often repeated.

His expression thoughtful, Byakuya threw a questioning glance towards Renji, who merely shook his head and shrugged. 

“I am afraid your Michi-san is quite mistaken,” Byakuya said slowly. “Out of our thirteen Captains, four - Kenpachi of the Eleventh, Hitsugaya of the Tenth, Hisagi of the Ninth, and Captain Abarai of the Fifth -” here, he gestured to Renji, who nodded slightly, shifting his weight as he leaned back against a pile of broken barrels, “were all originally citizens of Rukongai. The same holds true for nearly half our Lieutenants.”

Two sets of wide eyes swung instantly towards Renji. “You’re a _Captain?”_ Haru half-squawked, torn between awe and incredulity. “But you’re.... _Rukon!”_

“Not just Rukon, kid,” Renji snorted in response. “I’m Inuzuri.”

When only silent astonishment answered him, he nodded towards the hillside, barely visible above the line of the rooftops. “The graves were we laid offerings - those were my friends, fifty years ago.”

Haru squirmed uncomfortably at the thought, but his sister leaned forward, her eyes intent.

“Then Michi is lying,” Ko said softly, and Renji nodded shortly in her direction. 

“The question then becomes,” Byakuya murmured, “whether he lies through ignorance or intention.” 

“Oh, if he’s lyin’, s’ on purpose all right,” Haru grumbled, shuffling one hand across his tangled hair. “ ‘s a guy that comes ‘round his house a lot. Brings bottles of stuff with ‘im.”

“You believe that your Michi is being bribed to lie about the Shinigami?” Byakuya pressed, one eyebrow raising, and the boy shrugged, ducking his head in response. 

“How ‘m I supposed t’ know? Guy comes ‘round, Michi gets his drink, that’s all. Don’t get close enough to see more.”

“That is best,” Byakuya replied quietly, rising to his feet. On the other side of the ally, Renji followed suit, pushing himself up off the stack of broken barrels he’d been leaning against. “We must leave, but I wish you to promise me something.”

“Promises ain’t free,” Haru grumbled, then hissed as Ko brought her heel down on the top of his foot.

“What do you want us to do, Shinigami-san?” she asked, shooting her brother a glare when he opened his mouth to object. 

“I wish for you to tell people the truth,” Byakuya said simply, startling both the children and Renji. “Do so quietly, but tell them that to be Shinigami is not a right of blood, but of strength, will, and heart.” 

When Haru only glared, mutinous, Byakuya raised an eyebrow before adding, “Do so, and you will be rewarded for your services. It will not overburden my kitchens to provide food for a pair of children.”

Haru’s grin flashed wide, but Ko’s gaze narrowed as it fixed on the noble. “Who are you?” she demanded softly. “What is your name, Shinigami-san?”

“My identity is not important,” Byakuya replied dismissively, already turning away. “Food will be brought to you weekly, at the gravesite. Let’s go, Renji.”

Nodding in response, Renji automatically fell in beside Byakuya’s shoulder, following his partner’s steady strides out of the alley and back to the street, where Komamura was overseeing his Squad’s cleanup of the battle. 

“I feel like we should apologize,” Renji began, but the wolf-Captain shook his head in response. 

“It is no matter, Abarai-taichou. As you well know, riots are not uncommon in this area of Rukongai. Your and Kuchiki-taichou’s names will be omitted from the reports.”

“That is greatly appreciated, Komamura-taichou,” Byakuya nodded. “I am afraid Renji and I are due elsewhere. Do you have any objections to our departure?”

A grunt to the negative answered him. Dipping his head in reply, Byakuya motioned to Renji, and the pair of them leaped into Shunpo, headed for Seireitei and the Kuchiki manor. 

“All right, spill,” Renji snapped, when they were far enough from Inuzuri that not even Komamura’s hypersensitive ears would overhear them. “What gives with you not wantin’ those kids to know your name? You gave ‘em mine quick enough!”

“I do not mean to offend,” Byakuya answered levelly. “I have a theory on the identity of the person bribing this Michi -”

“An’ you need your name kept under wraps ‘till you do some investigating?” Renji guessed, and received a sharp nod in response. 

“I believe we may be pursuing a familiar face,” Byakuya confessed, his mouth set. “Such subterfuge would benefit only the egos of the noble clans, and there are few who harbor a deep enough grudge to see it through.”

____________________________________________________________

It was easy enough for him to slip away from the patrol squad, busy swarming through the streets of Inuzuri. He kept his head down as he worked, knowing that none of the members of that beast Komamura’s squad would understand the sneer fixed on his face. The Seventh collected outcasts and rejects; the true strength of the Seireitei, the nobility, would never subject itself to being lead by an animal, whether it wore the guise of a wolf or the Eleventh’s madman.

It took a few risky steps for him to escape the patrol unit without notice - no worse, however, than he had taken to join it. It was easy enough for him to slip in and out of the groups of Shinigami; call it a side-effect of his unique gift: averageness. 

Everything about him was entirely unremarkable. His hair and eyes were dark brown, his height and build utterly average, his face completely nondescript. Absolutely nothing in his appearance or demeanor served to make an impression on anyone he passed. 

He was not a Shinigami, but the shihakusho he wore fit him well, and the katana at his waist was easily passed off as a weak Zanpakutou. It took no effort at all for him to blend in with the thousands of them already in Seireitei.

________________________________________________________________

Reaching his Master’s house did not take long; although not a Shinigami, he had enough reiatsu to muster a passable Flashstep, a blessing that he rarely disregarded.

The Master’s servant met him on the veranda of the small house, bowing a brief greeting and informing him that the Master would speak to him. Something in the servant’s eyes, though... that closed-off look that the servant got when Master was angry, when the servant tried not to offend him least he be beaten.

Swallowing nervously, the agent stepped inside.

His Master sat, his seiza perfect, on a plush pillow atop the dais at the far end of the room. The low table in front of him was spread with heavy parchment and a collection of fine inks and brushes, the tools of a calligrapher. 

Falling to his knees, the agent crawled across the polished wooden floor, not daring to raise his head in his Master’s presence. 

“Well, Tsutomu?” came the Master’s voice, steady and calm, and the agent risked a glance upwards, the briefest glimpse of his master’s beautiful face. Pale, delicate features, framed by shining hair the color of deep stormclouds, and eyes like black gems, all hallmarks of the Master's noble Kuchiki blood.

“Masa-sama...”


	7. Sentimentality and Storms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline Notes: Because even I’m getting confused by this, a quick rundown to keep everything in order: Bonds of Honor picks up with Ichigo and Rukia’s wedding two years after RDBH leaves off. Six months after that, Ishida and Orihime get married. We’re now at the three-and-a-half year mark post RDBH, right about at Ishihime’s first wedding anniversary, so, yes, there has been a(nother) time jump. 
> 
> And why is it that the Quincy keep showing up and promptly lighting up? Again, Author’s PSA, smoking = smelly and stupid.

“You’re getting sentimental.”

A disgusted snort answered him. “And you’re becoming delusional. This has nothing to do with sentimentality.”

“Of course not,” Isshin snickered. “Every man that buys a house for his son does so just because he’s bored with having money in the bank.”

The familiar, frigid glare from behind the glasses didn’t phase Isshin in the least, not that Ryuuken had expected it to. The ex-Captain had all the sensitivity of a rhinoceros. 

“Don’t be mad at me because you’ve started caring again.”

A particularly dull rhinoceros, at that. 

“I just think it’s sweet that you’ve finally started expressing your boundless love for your precious son!”

A particularly dull, imbecilic rhinoceros. Which was going to be soundly perforated if it didn’t learn to shut its mouth. “Isshin, you must have a penchant for masochism that is equal to Kisuke’s.”

A snicker. “Oh, yes, I do. Punish me, Ryuuken-sam -ack!” A rapid tumble to the floor prevented the glowing arrow from striking its intended target - Isshin’s left ear - and left it embedded in the wall instead. Both men stared at the arrow for a long moment before Isshin climbed to his feet again, his expression utterly serious, and asked, “How do you explain all the holes in the wall to building maintenance?” 

His face expressionless, Ryuuken drew a silver cigarette case out of the pocket of his coat and flicked it open. “I tell them my pencil sharpener malfunctions.”

Which made less than no sense for multiple reasons, the least of which being the fact that there wasn’t even a pencil sharpener in the office. Ryuuken was a perfectionist; he always used pen. 

“And they buy that?” Isshin countered incredulously, watching as the arrow slowly dissolved into component particles that drifted back towards its creator. 

“Hardly. They simply know better than to question the word of the man signing their paychecks.”

“So it’s less them buying it and more you buying them.”

“Vulgar, but accurate.” Rolling his chair backwards a few feet, Ryuuken unfastened the latch on the window and shoved the glass open, letting the smoke from his now-lit cigarette drift outward. “Why are you even here?”

Sighing, Isshin flopped back into the chair he’d been occupying before the arrow had narrowly missed repiercing his ear for him. “I told you. I wanted to congratulate you on buying the house for Uryuu and Orihime.” 

“I would think you would be better off congratulating them, as they’ll be the ones receiving it.”

Isshin snorted. “I can’t congratulate my oldest mortal friend for remembering what emotions are?”

The second arrow was dodged much more casually than the first - he didn’t even come close to falling out of the chair, which meant Ryuuken was either losing his touch or not trying very hard. And Ryuuken would certainly never let Isshin see if he were losing his touch. 

“It was merely a gesture of practicality. Uryuu’s apartment is too small to support two people, and as he has refused to take the stipend offered by the Seireitei -”

Isshin snorted. It had been less ‘refused’ and more ‘told the Central 46 to go stuff their purses up their respective arseholes.’ “Damn prideful Quincy.” 

An oh-so-dignified huff answered him. “It’s only right. It would be unseemly for one of our people to be bought off by the Seireitei’s funds.”

“You’re just jealous because your son actually _could_ make a living working with the dead.”

The third arrow actually did necessitate falling out of the chair to avoid, so the remark had obviously hit a nerve. 

“As I was saying,” Ryuuken continued calmly, dematerializing his bow yet again with barely a blink, “Uryuu’s apartment is no longer sufficient for his needs, and he is certainly unable to upgrade his living conditions while pursuing a medical degree. I would be remiss in my obligations as a father if I did not see he and his wife adequately housed.”

“ ‘Remiss in your obligations’?” Isshin sputtered, prying his nose out of the carpet once again. “Can’t you just admit that you want him to be happy?”

“Wishing him to be happy would require familiarity with the emotion,” Ryuuken answered flatly, crushing his half-smoked cigarette against the cement ledge outside the window. 

Isshin sighed gustily as he shoved his way to his feet and turned for the door. “Whose turn is it to bring drinks this Friday?”

“Yours, of course. We went through two bottles of my best brandy last week, and I expect you to return in kind.”

Laughing softly to himself, Isshin waved his agreement over his shoulder as he left; he’d given Ryuuken that brandy last Christmas.

_____________________________________________________________

“...and the circadian rhythms can naturally be altered over a course of days or weeks....”

_“...by channelling multiple small streams of your reiatsu into the blade, rather than one concentrated burst....”_

“....by gradually shifting back the time you go to sleep and allowing yourself....”

_“....you allow yourself greater control over the amount of power placed in and generated by....”_

“....to sleep later in the morning - but not through my class, Kurosaki!”

“Huh?” Jerking his consciousness sharply out of his inner world - ignoring Zangetsu’s raised eyebrow and his Hollow’s shriek of laughter - Ichigo blinked up at his scowling teacher, an expression of mystified bewilderment on his face. “Circadian rhythms. Altering them. I wasn’t asleep, Tamo-sensei.”

The professor gave him a skeptical glare, but turned back to the front of the room, gathering up a piece of chalk, scrawling the words ‘Alpha Waves’ and ‘Delta Waves’ across the surface of the blackboard. 

Scowling himself, Ichigo slouched a little lower in his seat and began scribbling notes. 

“Playing with your sword again, Kurosaki?” came the low murmur from the desk beside his, and Ichigo shot a narrow-eyed glare towards his seatmate. 

“Oh, shut the hell up,” he whispered back, yanking his notebook back to the center of his desk a little more sharply than necessary and jabbing at it with his pen.

Not in the least put off, Ishida Uryuu cast a brief smirk at his friend before turning his attention back to the board, good and proper student that he was. The white-gold ring on his left hand glinted faintly as he turned over a clean page in his notebook, and it struck Ichigo, not for the first time, how bizarre it was that Uryuu was actually married. 

The first time he’d met the other boy, the very notion of the Quincy being a happily married man would have left him spasming on the ground in paroxysms of laughter. But somehow, Orihime’s influence had melted Uryuu’s unflappable cold, leaving him, if not a warmer person, than at least a bit more human. The fact that he was willing to make crude jokes about Zangetsu’s longwinded lectures was proof enough that. 

______________________________________________________________________

 

An hour later, as they were both sitting down to lunch, Ichigo felt the familiar dull, static-like burn start at the back of his skull. Glancing across the table, he saw Ishida’s head lift, a familiar sharpness entering the narrow blue eyes.

“You feel it too.” It wasn’t a question - it hardly needed to be. Ishida’s capacity for sensing reiatsu had always been greater than Ichigo’s, and the Hollow was strong enough that even a weak Shinigami wouldn’t have had trouble detecting it. Probably not a Menos, but not terribly far off, either.

When Uryuu merely shot him a glare and shoved at his glasses, Ichigo grimaced a vague apology and changed the subject. “Who’s on duty tonight?”

There was a momentary pause while Uryuu dug his cell phone from his pocket and called up the calender. A few quick scrolls brought him to the answer; “Tatsuki and Mizuiro.” 

“Tatsuki?” Ichigo repeated, blinking. “Thought she was off rotations for planning her ceremony...”

“Keigo has the flu, Sado’s out of town, and you and I are here. She had to take over - the last rotation of Shinigami trainees went home three days ago, and we’re not expecting the next batch until Tuesday. I don’t think there’s any cause for concern, though. They’ve handled stronger than this before.”

“Mmph.” His mouth already full, Ichigo nodded slightly. “Wasn’t worried, just confused,” he answered as best he could around a mouthful of rice. “They’ll be fine.”

“Your manners are repulsive, Kurosaki,” Ishida informed him wearily, shoving his phone back in his pocket. While it had begun as formality, the duty roster had quickly become a necessity as the group began their individual lives. 

Ichigo and Uryuu were both attending college with an eye towards medical school - Uryuu because he was genuinely passionate about medicine and helping people, Ichigo largely because it was expected of him. The courses he was taking were interesting and the material was a enough to be challenging, and it kept his father happy. 

And quite frankly, he wasn’t hurting for money. Although he’d struggled upon first returning from the Seireitei to the Living World, several of the Captains - no doubt led by Urahara and Ukitake - had banded together and forced through a vote that gave Ichigo and his ‘team’ in Karakura a generous monthly stipend in return for their part in keeping the city clear of Hollows. It had astounded Ichigo to learn that the money - more than enough to live off of, supporting both his apartment lease and his college classes with plenty to spare - wasn’t even half of a Captain’s monthly salary in Seireitei. 

Ichigo used his to secure a comfortable apartment not far from the college, large enough for both himself and Rukia, when she was able to leave her Lieutenant’s duties behind long enough to come back to the Living World. Ichigo’s life had gone from revolving around the frantic pace of Seireitei’s disasters to busy but oddly routine. His weekdays were spent in classes, alternate evenings on Hollow patrol, and whenever he wasn’t tackling his coursework or randomly-appearing Hollows, he worked weekends in a dojo that Tatsuki now owned. 

Nobody - with the possible exception of Tatsuki herself - was surprised with the success of the dojo. Bulldog tenacity and good common sense, honed by a business degree, had the dojo’s finances in perfect order, while Tatsuki’s own skill and dedication to martial arts made her a respected master. Although her intensity was enough to intimidate some of her students, a few ‘coaching sessions’ with Orihime - herself in school to become a kindergarten teacher - helped Tatsuki learn to tone down her usually fierce responses. Ichigo taught a few hand-to-hand courses and a kendo class on the weekends, and frequently dragged the rest of the ‘Karakura Crew’ along, insisting that they be able to fight in every feasible style. 

Tatsuki wasn’t especially gifted at kendo, but she was proficient enough to at least hold the match for a minute or two against Ichigo using almost all of his skills. Mizuiro made a general point of ignoring Ichigo’s directives in learning to fight, but on the rare occasion that Ichigo had dragged him into the kendo lessons, he fought like the sword was an extension of his hand. Keigo, despite being a mid-to-long-range fighter simply by the nature of his powers, had taken to kendo lessons well. He was better than Tatsuki, and, while no match for Ichigo or Mizuiro, wasn’t any sort of embarrassment in the dojo, either. 

Outside of the dojo had been something of a different story. Keigo had spent as long as possible - two and a half years following Ichigo’s return - drifting aimlessly, mostly to annoy his sister. It was entirely by accident that she had one day found him toying with a few lines of code in a computer game, trying to improve his character stats, realized after several minutes of berating him for wasting time that he’d actually _hacked_ the game in order to access the codes. Momentarily stunned, Mizuho had stared at him for a long moment, her expression thoughtful, before turning and leaving the room without another word. 

It had been rather annoying for Keigo to discover the next day that she had signed him up for a battery of computer courses at the local college, determined to have him put his skills to use. Now, after his first year, his teachers were hailing him as a computer genius, and he was quietly developing plans for his own game. It had been an amused Mizuiro’s suggestion that Keigo ask Chad for help with the soundtrack of the game once it became a reality.

Chad had returned to his interest in music. Although the band he’d originally been part of had long since dispersed, about a year after returning from Hueco Mundo, he managed to find a local group who was desperately in need of both a bass player and an experienced guiding hand. Chad had managed to fill both roles, calling on the few contacts he’d made while he’d been playing with his old band to get the new group - ironically named Dark Soul - playing local gigs on odd nights.

That was, at least, until six months after Uryuu and Orihime’s wedding, when Mizuiro, bored and dateless for the night, had finally attended one of the group’s shows. 

Although he said very little to the band at the time, he’d approached Chad the next morning and said, quite simply, ‘You guys are brilliant and need to be famous.”

Within forty-eight hours, Mizuiro had appointed himself the band’s manager and was making Dark Soul’s presence known by calling on his own - significantly more impressive - contacts. In under a week, the entirety of Karakura knew the group’s whole repertoire of songs and every bar and backwater dive they played was crammed to capacity.

It had taken two weeks to land a record deal, and Mizuiro was quite annoyed that it hadn’t happened sooner. 

Most of Chad’s days were now spent either on the road or at the recording studio, his weekends onstage before sellout crowds in cities scattered across Japan - not overseas, not yet - but his nights, the ones that weren’t crammed into a bunk in a tour bus, were spent with Tatsuki. 

Uryuu and Orihime’s engagement announcement at Rukia and Ichigo’s wedding had set the tone for what would quickly become tradition for their small group, an odd mingling of shared joy and one-upmanship. One couple’s event would play host to another pair’s happy news; Ishida and Orihime’s announcement at Ichigo’s wedding wasn’t quite surpassed by Tatsuki’s announcement during Ishida’s reception that she and Chad were dating. 

Six months after that, however, at Ichigo and Rukia’s first-anniversary party, Chad going down on one knee in the middle of the room to propose to Tatsuki had shocked everyone. The last few weeks had seen everyone involved coordinating their lives and duty shifts around a muddle of wedding plans, musical recordings, and college and martial arts classes, as well as increasingly frequent Hollow activity.

“I had hoped that the schedule for the training groups would be a little more.... cohesive,” Uryuu commented after a moment, frowning at his own lunch as Ichigo coughed, swallowed, and coughed again. “We’re being left with significant gaps.”

The suggestion had been Shuuhei’s, originally. With Karakura still, years after the war, managing to attract far more Hollows than a city that size rightfully should have, it was a perfect testing and proving ground for inexperienced Shinigami. It hadn’t taken a great deal of argument to convince the rest of the Captains to agree to the idea; any idea of Shuuhei’s generally gained the support of Kira and Renji fairly quickly, provided it was sound. Renji’s support meant that Byakuya and Rukia - and therefore Ukitake - were often willing to stand behind the proposal as well. Ukitake’s endorsement meant that Kyouraku’s followed, Urahara would usually agree for the sake of annoying Soifon, and Hitsugaya would grumble his assent without explanation.

The motion - further supported by Unohana and Komamura - had passed without question. 

Seireitei had managed to acquire ownership of a small apartment complex near the center of the city, and set up a permanent Senkaimon - much like the one in the basement of the Shoten - in a a corner of the lobby. When things were running optimally, a new group of seven Shinigami - five inexperienced, two seasoned - would come through every week on steady rotation. The reality, however, was that things very rarely ran optimally; injuries sustained during Hollow fights meant officers were getting swapped in and out, occasionally suffering breakdowns, blow-ups, or similar upheavals that generally tended to throw things like schedules to the winds.

The most recent severe attack - an Adjuchas-class Hollow that had appeared four days previous - had wounded six of the seven, leaving only the senior officer - Hisagi’s tenth-seat - uninjured, and although Orihime had quickly been summoned to heal them, the entire group had been recalled to Seireitei to give their reports, leaving a significant gap in the assistance that the Karakura team had been relying on.

____________________________________________________________ 

The dojo was quiet in the early afternoon; the adult’s morning classes had long since left, and it would be a few more hours before the children began showing up for their afterschool classes. 

The office at the back of the dojo, with cream-colored walls and a broad window that was perpetually covered with sheer off-white curtains, was always a peaceful retreat, silence usually only broken by the soft hum of the laptop computer sitting open in the middle of the desk. 

At the moment, however, the arhythmic, stilted tapping of keys overrode the whisper of the computer’s fan. Tatsuki, a half-eaten sandwich in her left hand and typing only with her right, glowered at the screen as she updated her bookkeeping records for the week. There was no good reason for the irritation splayed across her face; even without the more-than-generous stipend from Seireitei, the dojo would have provided enough money for her to live comfortably, if not easily. She employed one full-time assistant and two additional teachers, one of whom was Ichigo.

Despite any reservations she or Ichigo may have had, her old friend was proving to be an amazing teacher. Perhaps it was something he’d gained when he’d taken Captaincy of the Third for a short time, now over three years ago, or maybe it was just a previously undiscovered talent. Either way, Ichigo - married or not - was building up a devoted group of student fans. 

Kendo had never been so popular amongst a female population.

The sharp buzz of the cellphone in her breast pocket jerked her out of her musings - the ugly, familiar sound that she was only too-well acquainted with. Cursing around her mouthful of sandwich, she dropped the remainder of it back on her plate and dragged the phone out, flipping it open to look at the map on the screen even as she leapt from her chair. The black indicator dot was barely half a mile from the dojo, but the green blip that represented Mizuiro was, for some reason, closer to the Hollow than she was. 

Each member of the ‘Karakura Team’ was equipped with an identical cellphone; all of the latest features, as well as some that regular consumer phones couldn’t brag of quite yet; fully remote voice dialing, video chat, and, of course, state-of-the-art Hollow detection, tracking, and analyzation software. The phones were supplied by none other than Urahara Kisuke himself, part of the provisions that the team received from Seireitei, and were nothing short of godsends. Virtually indestructible (they’d been tested by Kusajishi Yachiru and survived over a week in her possession, which meant that nothing short of an Adjuchas would likely be able to damage it), the phones were also completely innocuous - and wireless-compatible!

Reaching for the earpiece perpetually nestled in her left ear, Tatsuki snapped at the phone, “Dial Mizuiro!” as she hurtled out the doorway and into the street.

_______________________________________________________________

Mizuiro was reaching for his phone even before the first chords of the Bee Gee’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’ blared from his ringer. Bad disco or not, he thought the song was - however morbidly - appropriate as a ‘Hollow Alert’ tone. Certainly it was more interesting than Ichigo’s, which was the same grating squall of ‘Hollow! Hollow!’ that his old Substitute badge had used. Tatsuki’s phone was set to emit a dull buzz when a Hollow was sensed, Chad’s used a low bass-guitar riff that he’d recorded himself, Keigo’s played some painfully dated computer-game theme, and gods only knew what Uryuu used - if he used anything, that was. The Quincy still had the best reiatsu-sensing skills of all of them; he probably didn't even need his phone to alert him.

_‘Tatsuki calling,’_ the smooth voice of his phone informed him, and Mizuiro sighed faintly, letting the low hum in his throat fade away as the first of his ‘water balloons’ coalesced in his palm. 

“Answer,” he replied automatically, picking up his pace to a trot. The Hollow was only a few blocks away, between him and the dojo.

_“Are you on target?”_

“Hello to you too, Tatsuki-san,” he shot back, with only the most mild sarcasm. “I’m five blocks away. It doesn’t look very powerful. Would you like to take high ground as backup, or did you want this one yourself?”

_“Take it,”_ Tatsuki answered immediately. _“I’m just leaving the dojo, but I’ll be there in two minutes. High ground.”_

“See you there,” Mizuiro answered politely. “Phone, command: end call.”

_‘Call ended,’_ the phone confirmed, and Mizuiro sped up until he was almost-but-not-quite running down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of the mass of fleeing, bewildered non-sensitives on his way to go fight a monster, humming the chorus of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ as he did so.  
________________________________________________

“That was quick,” Ichigo muttered a few minutes later, as the dull itch of the Hollow’s reiatsu abruptly vanished.

“Mizuiro seems to be motivated today,” Ishida answered dryly, his eyes half-focused behind his glasses as he tracked their friend. “Tatsuki didn’t even get a hit in.”

________________________________________________________

The dull itchy-burny sensation that had been crawling along the back of her neck stopped suddenly, and the surprise caused Karin to stumble a half-step, nearly missing her kick. The ball skittered off the toe of her cleated shoe, gave a few halfhearted bounces, and rolled off across the field, finally stopping a good ten feet from the goal. 

Thankfully, she was alone on the field; it saved her the embarrassment of having her bungled kick seen, or the otherwise-inevitable scolding she would have received from either Isshin or Ichigo when she swore in frustration. Kurosaki Karin was not used to missing her shots.

Soccer still took up most of her weekends; fiercely competitive games in which she was usually the only female, playing with and against teams of older boys, all of whom treated her with slightly awed respect. The last time one of them had even contemplated the notion of getting fresh with her, he’d wound up on his back in the dirt with a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder, and a renewed respect for the name Kurosaki. 

It was only Ichigo’s furious insistence that had kept Karin off of the Karakura Team. Even though she was now older than Ichigo had been when he’d first gained the abilities of a Shinigami, he continued his stubborn belief that his little sister was too young to be allowed to fight Hollows. 

However, Ichigo wasn’t usually around on weekdays, so if a Hollow just happened to show up in an area that just happened to be near Karin.... well, suffice it to say that she and the rest of the Team had a tacit agreement that her involvement in the fights would simply not be mentioned to her brother. 

And if a few of her soccer games didn’t run quite as late as she said they did, well... Shinji and Tatsuki were more than happy to teach Karin a bit more about the Shinigami and martial arts without her overprotective nii-san or her overbearing father being any the wiser. 

Truth be told, though, Ichigo would probably have objected a great deal less to the lessons that Shinji was teaching - reiatsu control, basic kendo, and the basics of Shinigami lore - if the lessons were not being held at the Shoten. Despite the fact that the old shop was precisely where Ichigo had begun his own learning, there was one addition to the shop in past years that he did not approve of.

Collecting her ball, Karin shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted towards the far side of the park. Speak of the devil...

________________________________________________________________

A faint, frustrated sigh escaped thin lips. 

Ice-pale blue eyes, narrowed against the painfully bright sun, remained steadily fixed on two figures across the expanse of grass. 

One was a woman, young, with curly, dark-brown hair and haunted, dark-circled brown eyes. A thin scar, still pink and slightly raw, ran from the corner of her right eye, across to the bottom of her right nostril, marring what had once been a pretty, if unremarkable, face. 

Her attention was divided about equally between the book of traditional poetry that she held, and her toddler son playing quietly in the grass just beyond her arm’s reach, murmuring happily to himself as he watched beetles moving through the grass.

“Gin?”

Jerking his gaze away from the mother and son, Ichimaru Gin turned, blinking in surprise as he found Kurosaki Karin stepping into the shadow of the tree he was sitting under. The oversized rock he was lounging on was more than large enough for two people, and he sat up without thinking, shifting over to allow her room to sit. 

She did so, not batting an eye at sitting less than an arm’s length from the man her brother had told her never to be near. It wasn’t the first time she’d been around him; whenever he wasn’t out stalking, he was holed up at the Shoten, and it wasn’t unusual for her to run into him during her lessons there. 

Perhaps unwisely, she had never been afraid of him. 

Instead, she’d treated him with the same blunt casualness she did everyone else, and after a few bewildered days, Gin’s response had been to shrug it off and begin treating her the same way. 

The result, if it could not be called a friendship, was at the very least something like an exercise in mutual faith. Karin had faith that Gin had no desire to kill her or betray her secret lessons to her family, and Gin had faith that Karin bore him no ill will. It meant a quiet but surprisingly steady trust between the pair.

“So,” she said after a long moment, “what’s so special about him?”

“Eh?” Forcing his eyes wide despite the sharpness of the light outside the tree’s protective shadow, Gin managed an approximation of bewildered innocence. “What’re ya talkin’ ‘bout, Karin-chan?”

The look the girl leveled at him would have made Zaraki quail. Wisely, Gin wiped the false innocence from his face, narrowing his eyes again as he stared at her. “Wha’ makes y’ think he’s special, Karin-chan?”

“Oh, please,” she snorted, folding her arms across her chest. “You must think I’m as dense as Ichi-nii. You don’t give off pedo vibes, Gin, and I can’t imagine that the kid owes you money. So why the hell are you constantly stalking him? Is he... possessed or something?”

“Or somethin’,” Gin agreed, shrugging, and Karin sighed, leaning backwards to thump the back of her head on the trunk of the tree. 

“Why,” she muttered between thumps, “do I bother?” 

“ ‘s in the blood,” Gin informed her, ignoring the responding eyeroll, and stuck his hand between the tree and her head when she didn’t stop thumping. Her last thump came down hard on his fingers, and he felt the brief flash of pain across his knuckles as they were scraped raw on the rough bark. 

Looking contrite, Karin sat back up again, rubbing the back of her head and half-glancing at his hand, but Gin forestalled questions by letting his sleeve fall down over his abused knuckles. 

“So, tell me. What is he?” she repeated finally, her own eyes narrowing as she turned her gaze to the brown-haired boy.

Gin’s response was as terse as it was eloquent. “He’s a storm.”

A few long minutes of silence passed, the two of them watching the boy as he continued to fuss through the grass, until he gave a laugh of triumph and waved his hand, a grasshopper trapped in his clenching fingers. 

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” Karin asked softly. “There are ways to prepare for a storm, you know. It’s easier to weather when you’re ready for it.”

A very faint, sad smile flickered over the edge of Gin’s mouth. “Y’ hones’ly think they’d b’lieve me?” he countered, shaking his head. “Got no proof. Jus’ a feelin’ I shouldn’ have,” he added, one thin finger unconsciously tracing the line of the neutralization scar across his chest. 

“Gin, any kind of warning is better than none!” Karin snapped at him, but the slow shake of the man’s head cut her off. 

“Righ’ now, ain’ nothin’ I c’n do,” he said softly, pushing himself to his feet. “B’sides... dun’ wanna get hit by lightnin’, hm?”

And with that, he turned and walked away.

Karin stared after him for a long moment, until he rounded a corner of the path and vanished from her sight. Sighing, she dropped her chin onto her hands and turned her attention back to the brown-haired boy.

________________________________________________

“There you are,” Shinji sighed in exasperated relief the instant Gin slipped through the door of the Shoten. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Eyes widening, Gin took a quick step backwards, turning back towards the door. “Think I jus’ remembered somethin’ I forgot -”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Snake-quick, Shinji’s hand shot out and snagged the back of Gin’s collar. Meekly, Gin allowed himself to be pulled backwards into the shop. “You’ve been avoiding her since you got sent here, and I’m sick of getting caught in the middle of your crap,” the blond Visored growled, pointing straight-armed to one of the doors at the back of the room. “You’re gonna go and talk to her, and I mean _now!”_

Sighing softly, Gin hunched his shoulders and obediently shuffled past the other man, clambering up the steps at the back of the room and slipping through the door without a word.

Matsumoto Rangiku sat against the back wall of the room, knees drawn up to her chest and arms hugging her legs, body curled in on itself as though she were attempting to shrink away. It was so strange seeing the usually outgoing, vibrant woman in such a position that Gin froze, bewildered and not a little concerned, barely a step within the doorway.

“Ran-chan?” he ventured, cautiously, and brilliant blue eyes immediately raised to meet his own.

“Gin,” Rangiku said softly, uncurling herself and standing up so that she could look her one-time lover in the eye. “We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the phones: this was originally written in 2010. This was back when BlackBerries and Palms were still a thing and the same year the iPhone 4 released. So, yeah, video chats and voice-automation still were the wave of the future at that point. It's almost scary how fast technology moves.


	8. Tears and Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asauchi - (lit. 'shallow cut') an unnamed sword created to be a shell for a Zanpakutou spirit. Also the unnamed Zanpakutou of new or inexperienced Shinigami.
> 
> Warnings: misogynistic language.

Hyorinmaru swung down.

The air hissed in protest as it parted before the infinitely sharp blade, the faintest edge of icy reiatsu trailing in the sword’s wake as it struck, clashing against Haineko’s upturned edge. 

His opponent let out a faint, pained hiss as the sword dipped under the power of Hitsugaya’s strike, letting Hyorinmaru’s edge slip dangerously close to her pale neck. Thin hands spasmed on the hilt of the blade as the arms trembled, muscles driven beyond their capacity. Haineko was a heavy blade, far heavier than she looked, and the cat likely did not appreciate being called out for situations like this....

Kin, pale blue eyes wide as Hyorinmaru’s deadly edge inched closer, drew in a ragged breath and mustered what little remained of her strength, slowing but not stopping the icy blade’s decent. Less than a hand’s width remained before her blood would mark the training field.

_His face impassive, Hitsugaya stared at the young girl standing before him. Her eyes -shaped like Rangiku’s, but with an ice-blue color that must have come from Gin - were fixed on his, all of her attention focused on him as he spoke._

_“Your mother has been coddling you,” he said softly, drawing Hyorinmaru with a hiss of frozen steel. “She gives you breaks when you’re tired, allows you to catch your breath and tend to your wounds. That’s not how things happen in the field. An enemy won’t give you time to recover yourself, and neither will I. What you’ve had was kendo training. What I’m about to give you... is combat training.”_

_She nodded, pale and silent, as he raised Hyorinmaru, feeling the crystalline dragon’s anticipation and curiosity. He lunged at her without warning, and she barely brought up Haineko’s blade in time to deflect the attack._

_Rangiku’s fighting style was much like the woman herself; deceptively strong, but laid-back and casual to the point it bordered on lazy. She was the only one whom Kin had ever fought against, and it showed. The girl was woefully unprepared for Hitsugaya’s faster, fiercer attacks._  
________________________________________________________________

Ice-colored eyes flashed with desperation and just a hint of panic as Hitsugaya’s strength won. 

Twisting sideways, she used their still-locked blades to shove Hyorinmaru left as she twisted right, throwing herself to the ground as she did so. Her shoulder hit hard, but she turned the momentum into a roll, pulling her legs out of the path of Hitsugaya’s falling blade. 

There was a certain art to falling and rolling with a blade in your hand, one that Kin hadn’t quite mastered yet - there was a line of blood showing through a slice in her sleeve when she scrambled to her feet, breath coming in unsteady gasps. Nonetheless, she raised Haineko again, although the sword wavered in her grasp.

“You look about ready to collapse,” Hitsugaya commented dryly, straightening up and resting the back of Hyorinmaru’s blade against his shoulder. Half-turning to glance over his shoulder, his eyes met those of his Lieutenant, watching them calmly from the porch of Hitsugaya’s childhood home. “What kind of endurance training have you actually been doing with her?”

Rangiku shrugged in reply. “We never could spar for more than an hour at a time. You’ve been chasing her around for...” pausing, she squinted at the angle of the sunlight, shafting through the trees. “...about two, I think?”

Kin exhaled a snort, although whether that was aimed at the chasing part or the two hours part - he thought it was probably closer to three - it was impossible to tell.

“Call a break, you two,” Rangiku advised, trying to hide her smile and doing a rather poor job of it. “Captain, your grandmother has watermelon!”

“Matsumoto, neither of us is young enough that we need to be called in for snack breaks,” he snapped back at her, glancing past her at the steady form of his grandmother, standing just outside the door of the house with a platter in her hands. “Do not treat me like a child!” 

It was, he reflected, purely bad luck that his voice cracked on the last word. 

There was a moment of utter silence before Rangiku burst out laughing, letting herself fall sideways on the porch as she clutched her stomach, all but convulsing with the force of her giggles. Behind her, he could see his grandmother smiling, her amusement gentle at Toushirou’s expense.

There was a slightly strangled sound from beside him, and he glanced over to see Kin, teeth sunk into her lower lip in a not-entirely successful attempt to muffle her own laughter.

“Oh, shut up,” Hitsugaya growled, face flaming, before sheathing Hyorinmaru and stomping towards the porch. 

_“You must admit,”_ the dragon commented, humor tickling the edges of the booming voice, _“that the timing of that was quite perfect.”_

_“You can shut up, too,”_ he grumbled back, but the anger in his voice was mostly feigned. Rangiku’s laughter was highly contagious... a bit like the plague. 

Kin followed him onto the porch, still laughing silently, one hand pressed tightly over her mouth, shoulders shaking and eyes bright with mirth. 

Shaking his head and sighing, Toushirou plucked the largest slice of watermelon off the platter his grandmother held out. “Go ahead and laugh,” he growled to Kin, taking a large bite and valiantly resisting the urge to spit the seeds at Rangiku. “And pretend you actually know how to make noise.”

“Ah...” Lowering her hand from her mouth, Kin offered a tentative smile in his direction, the corners of her eyes still creased with amusement. “I apologize, Hitsugaya-taichou.”

He tongued one of the watermelon seeds he’d tucked into his cheek, weighing the temptation of immaturity against the reservations of decades, then gave his head a miniscule shake and finally spit the seeds over the side of the porch, away from the three females. “Don’t,” he answered shortly, moving to sit on the edge of the porch and letting his feet hang. “There’s nothing you need to apologize for. Eat your watermelon.”

The smile lingering on Kin’s mouth gentled slightly, the wary humor in her eyes deepening to gratitude, and she bowed her head to him in thanks, reaching for the smallest slice on the tray until Rangiku reached past her and shoved the largest remaining piece into her hand. Her eyes widening, Kin opened her mouth to object, but was instantly cut off by Hitsugaya and Matsumoto’s dual chorus of “Just eat it!”

Looking quite sheepish, she sat down and complied.

________________________________________________________________

_“Haineko is complaining quite bitterly about being dragged into the girl’s training sessions,”_ Hyorinmaru noted with some amusement, and Hitsugaya covered his faint smirk by wiping watermelon juice from his mouth. 

_“I’m not surprised,”_ he answered silently, _“Typical lazy cat.”_

A faint _wuff_ of amusement answered that. _“Lazy but for the exercise of her lungs, sadly. I begin to worry for my hearing.”_

_“Just point out to her how devastated Matsumoto would be if something were to happen to Kin that could have been prevented by this training,”_ Hitsugaya suggested, not remotely in jest. 

_“A fair point,”_ Hyorinmaru answered, his own tone sobering, and the immediacy of the dragon’s presence vanished; no doubt taking his master’s advice and speaking to Haineko. The fact that his and his lieutenant’s Zanpakutou were in near-constant communication had long ago ceased to worry the young Captain. It gave him at least some small insight into his second’s state of mind, sake-drenched though it had often been. 

With Kin’s identity now an open secret between them, though, he found that Rangiku’s mind was much less obscure than it had once been. He would never understand the woman fully, nor did he want to, but at least he had some slight idea of what to expect when his Lieutenant suffered an emotional blow. 

The last one she’d been dealt, three days ago, had come from a not-precisely-scheduled visit to the Living World and her former lover to reveal the secret she’d kept from him for over a century.

____________________________________________________________________

Taking another careful bite of her watermelon, Rangiku felt a smile cross her face as she glanced to her side, taking in the sight of both her daughter and her Captain, sitting on the edge of the porch with their feet dangling, watermelon slices in hand. Kin’s quiet calm and the low, cool tingle of Hitsugaya’s reiatsu pressed soothingly on the edges of her own awareness, helping to untangle the still-festering mess of emotions that was left from her visit with Gin three days before.  
____________________________________________________________

_“We need to talk,” she said simply, hoping the sharp determination in her tone would hide the quaver in her voice._

_“Maa... talk ‘bout what, Ran-chan?” he countered, eyes narrowed once again to mere slits, rubbing at the back of his neck with a nervous half-smile._

_Turning her head away, Matsumoto let a faint, uneasy frown trace her mouth. “I think this might go better if you were sitting down, Gin.”_

_The half-smile vanished from his face in an instant, his eyes opening again to fix on her, wide and serious. “Jus’ what’re you gonna tell me, Ran?”_

_She turned back to him, the frown sharpening, and Gin sat down on the floor with a grimace, not wanting to argue with the expression in her eyes. Silently, Matsumoto folded her legs beneath her and sat facing him, her seiza perfect, twisting her hands together in her lap while she gathered her words._

_“Do you remember the night before you left Rukongai, for the Academy?” the quiet question came after a long moment, and he blinked, confused, and nodded._

_“Did you ever wonder why it took me so long to join you in the Seireitei after you’d left?”_

_“I...” frowning, Gin shook his head slightly. “I jus’ figured you weren’ ready yet.”_

_“In a manner of speaking,” Rangiku answered dryly. “The truth is, Gin, that one time together...” Even though her words failed her, the hand she settled over her stomach did not; Gin’s eyes widened sharply, an expression of gaping disbelief crossing his face for the barest of moments._

_“We... got a kid?” he managed, half-stammering, when the first wave of shock had finally passed. “But - you never -”_

_“I didn’t think you would care,” Rangiku answered softly, her voice sad. “When I finally came to Seireitei, you were already a seated officer, already at Aizen’s side... I thought I was behind you. And when you came back to me... you never showed any interest in taking things beyond quick fucks, Gin, what was I supposed to think?”_

_“I...” stunned, Gin shook his head. “ ‘m sorry, Ran, I shoulda -”_

_“No,” she interrupted softly, holding up one hand to silence him. “It’s not your fault, Gin. And truth be told, I wouldn’t trade what happened. Kin has been the greatest blessing I’ve ever received.”_

_“Kin?” he echoed, the faintest traces of a smile pulling up the corners of his mouth, and Rangiku shot him a warning glare._

_“Yes, Gin, named for you,” she sighed, rolling herself a little bit sideways so that she could sit on the floor rather than her heels. “Her hair is the most beautiful shade of white-gold...”“ ‘s a girl?” Gin smiled softly, his voice amazed, and Rangiku nodded slightly, her own eyes misty._

_“I.... could I... meet her?”_

_The moment the tentative whisper escaped him, the smile fell from Rangiku’s face, a flash of pain crossing behind her eyes._

_“Ran?”“Gin, I....” Twisting her hands together, Matsumoto averted her eyes again. “I raised Kin... trying to instill the will of a Shinigami in her - the loyalty, the honor, the sense of duty to Seireitei. She was sill so young when you betrayed us....”_

_The smile slid away from Gin’s face as well, his eyes sliding half-shut as his expression went guarded and his body language blank. “I guess.... she hates me, then?”_

_The pain and resignation in his voice stabbed deep. Feeling the tears well in her eyes, Rangiku reached out her hands to him, wishing she could still feel the dark, sharp curl of his reiatsu around her own. “Oh, gods, Gin, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry -”_

_She shouldn’t have come. Should never have left him with the news of a daughter he would never see, a child who would never willingly look him in the eye. He would have been happier in ignorance, ever unknowing of the miracle he had given her._

_“I’m sorry, I’m shouldn’t have -”_

_“Shh, Ran. S’alright,” he whispered, low voice suddenly closer to her ear than it should have been, and then his arms slid around her shoulders again, thin and strong and painfully familiar, and Rangiku lost herself in the simple, agonizing bliss of memory and cried her eyes dry against his chest._

_____________________________________________________________

_“S’ tell me more,” came the smiling request, almost an hour later. Matsumoto, once recovered from her tears, had given Gin the next-best thing to meeting his daughter; the knowledge of who she was. How her skills with kidou were bidding fair to pass Rangiku’s one day, the slow but steady improvement to her kendo, and how much she enjoyed reading, particularly about Seireitei’s history._

_“...and we moved her out of Rei-baa-san’s house in the twenty-third and put her with Hitsugaya’s grandmother in Junrinan until the new term at the Academy starts -”_

_She’d broken off as Gin sat up sharply, his eyes wide. “Academy?”_

_“Of course the Academy,” Matsumoto replied, nonplussed. “Why did you think I’d been putting so much time into training her if not to go to the Academy?”_

_“Jus’ t’ defend herself,” Gin answered, his voice too sharp and too fast. “Th’ ‘cademy’s too dangerous for her!“_

_“Too dangerous?” Rangiku repeated incredulously, her eyebrows nearly raising off her head. “Gin, she’s been living in Rukongai! The Academy will be a haven compared to that.”_

_“ ‘s not.... don’ mean the livin’ conditions,” Gin grumbled, his eyes falling shut again as he slumped down, knees to his chest. “ ‘s just.... ‘f they know she’s your kid, ain’t gonna take much thinkin’ to fig’re out who her daddy is, hm? An’ I don’ want her gettin’ hurt ‘cause a’ wha’ I did.”_

_“Is that all?” Rather to his frustration, she laughed softly, reaching out a gentle hand to squeeze his shoulder. “Gin, relax. Hitsugaya-taichou is the one who sponsored her for the Academy, and he’ll make no secret of it. Shuuhei and Kira will stand up for her, too, once I tell them she’s mine. People won’t dare lay a hand on her, Gin. I promise.”_

_“Don’ promise, Ran,” he whispered back, shaking his head at her. “Don’ promise.”_

______________________________________________________________

_Matsumoto left him a few minutes later. As he felt the energy of the Senkaimon fade, he curled himself into the corner of the room, eyes closed tight, trying not to remember...._

...hard stone against his knees, a long-fingered hand stroking his hair as he knelt. The touch was gentle, but there was always an undertone of threat to it - that hand could, and often had, so easily fist into his hair, move and strike his face, tighten around his throat....

“Just remember, Gin,” the voice, soft and cultured, so easily hiding the hiss of the serpent’s tongue, “my eyes are everywhere. My blades are everywhere. You have no sanctuary, no secrecy. You have nothing that cannot be taken from you.”

_And Gin could only curl himself tighter, trying desperately to fight the memories that threatened to overwhelm him, and wish that Matsumoto had never told him the truth._

______________________________________________________________

As always, the food had been bundled neatly into cloth-wrapped packages, compact and tightly tied, and tucked into a heavy cloth bag. It was more than enough to sustain two children for a week’s time - it could easily have sustained Renji and Rukia’s old group of five with little effort - but Byakuya, like Renji, was fully aware that their two ‘informants’ were not feeding only themselves. 

“Is everything satisfactory?” The question was asked softly, barely loud enough to carry across the austerely elegant kitchen to where Renji knelt.

“You gonna ask that every week, Byakuya?” Renji snorted, tying down the top of the bag and swinging it carefully over his shoulder. The noble himself was carrying a cloth-wrapped package the length of his arm, which Renji glanced at curiously but did not question. “The answer’s always the same, ya know.”

“I do know,” Byakuya replied, amusement coloring the edges of his tone as he stopped beside his partner, adjusting the hood of the lightweight cloak over his head to hide the kenseikan he wore. Both men were taking an hour from their mornings to take the weekly delivery to Inuzuri, and neither wished to waste time changing from and to their shihakusho when a hooded cloak served the purpose of disguise well enough. “However, I prefer to be assured.” 

“Try bein’ assured that your kitchen staff know what they’re doin’,” Renji chided teasingly, dropping a fast kiss on the corner of Byakuya’s mouth and grinning at the mock-glare his action received. At a discreet distance, the kitchen staff exchanged smiles as they very dutifully continued their work, all of them keeping a not-so-dutiful half an eye on their Master and his Consort. 

“I have every faith in my staff,” Byakuya answered, flicking playfully at the hood of Renji’s own cloak so that it fell forward, over the redhead’s eyes. “However, it would be remiss of us if we did not ensure the contents of the package ourselves.”

Grinning broadly, Renji shoved his hood back again, looped the strap of the bag over his shoulder and his free arm into Byakuya’s, and dragged the unprotesting noble out the door in a flicker of Shunpo. 

Their entertainment departed, the kitchen staff exchanged broad grins of mingled affection and amusement and quickly resumed their duties.  
___________________________________________________________________

The trip to Inuzuri didn’t take long, at Flashstep speeds, and the two children were waiting for them, only half-hidden by the scrubby brush ringing the hillside where the three graves lay. Both of the children looked far better than they had at their first encounter with the Shinigami - they were now clean and clearly healthy, their clothes, while far from new, were clean and well-mended, and while neither wore shoes, it was entirely a matter of choice. 

“Mornin’, you two,” Renji grunted, swinging the bag off his shoulder. As usual, Haru - growing into a rough set of lean muscles, now that he was being properly fed - wasted no time in digging into the pack, not even bothering to greet the two Shinigami. Ko, as ever, bowed politely to them, her dark eyes cautious and assessing as they ran over the two Shinigami, lingering briefly on the package Byakuya still carried. 

“Good morning, Abarai-taichou, Shinigami-san,” she answered finally, not even blinking as she caught the wrapped riceball Haru pitched at her head. “Thank you for the food.”

“You are welcome,” Byakuya answered levelly, and Renji shook his head slightly in amusement. Byakuya had remained adamant in his refusal to give the two children his name - partly because he did not want it bruited about that he was personally investigating the source of the rumors in Rukongai, and, he had half-joked to Renji a few weeks earlier, partly because he thought Haru would attempt to extort him should the boy realize Byakuya’s wealth.

He probably had a point on the second part, Renji thought with a snicker, tapping Haru lightly on the head and interrupting the boy’s dig through the bag. 

“Fishcakes are in the blue box, kid. You got anythin’ for us this week?”

“Hmph,” was Haru’s only reply as the blue box was dragged into view and eagerly raided for its contents. “Been watchin’ Michi like you want. Man came two days ago, brought bottles ‘long with ‘im. He dropped ‘em off, they argued a sec, an’ then he left again.”

“Michi’s contact argued with him?” Byakuya repeated, eyebrows flickering upward, but Haru had his mouth too full to answer. 

Licking daintily at the tips of her fingers to remove the last few grains of rice, Ko nodded faintly. “In a sense. The man brought ten bottles, brown ones with gold writing, and he only stayed for a few minutes. Michi asked him a question and the man shook his head and was angry when he answered. He shoved the bottles at Michi and left.”

Byakuya frowned faintly, his expression thoughtful. “I see. And have you observed anything else that might be of use in identifying Michi’s contact?”

Two headshakes answered him. Their previous descriptions of the man - brown haired, average height and build, with no particular defining features other than being, presumably, a Shinigami, had not helped narrow the field of suspects greatly. The image they had painted of him was that of an utterly average man - and therefore, for all intents and purposes, utterly invisible. 

Haru, already well into his third fishcake, finally glanced up at the two men and blinked when he caught sight of the package still under Byakuya’s arm. While he wasn’t quite bold enough to grab it from the Shinigami’s grasp, he did narrow his eyes towards it and carefully close the box he’d been eating from, standing up with it held carefully in his hand. “What’s that?” he demanded sharply, jabbing a finger towards Byakuya’s cargo.

“Nothing edible,” the noble answered dryly, and Haru’s face flushed a dull red.

“Screw you,” the boy snapped back, ignoring both his sister’s chiding glare and Byakuya’s raised eyebrow. “As if you’ve ever had t’ go hungry a day in your life!”

Renji found his own eyebrows raising as well, a little surprised by the astuteness of the comment. Granted, Byakuya missed a good number of meals - he, like Renji, had the unfortunate habit of becoming so involved with his work that he often forgot to eat. However, being hungry with food readily available a few steps down the hall was very different than being hungry with no food in sight, a difference Renji could well appreciate. He’d experienced both.

“You are.... quite correct,” Byakuya answered, after a moment of silence. “I was privileged enough in my childhood that I was never starved, and my comment was thoughtless. However, I believe that what is contained here is something you may well appreciate.”

Ko, a second riceball half-forgotten in her hand, turned curious eyes to Renji, who could only shrug in response. “I dunno what it is either,” he informed her, and she wordlessly swung her gaze back to Byakuya, who quietly set about unwrapping the package. 

When the cloth parted to reveal a wooden box the length of his arm, Renji felt a gape of incredulity cross his face before he schooled his expression again. Had Byakuya really -

Yes, he had. Lying nestled in the dark cloth lining the box were two asauchi blades of faultless craftsmanship. Both were katana length, although one was slightly shorter than the other, the blade lighter.

“You’re.... givin’ us... swords?” Haru, his own expression as stunned as Renji’s had been, reached almost hesitantly towards the contents of the box before jerking his hand away again, fixing a glare on Byakuya. “What’s the price?”

“They have no price for you,” Byakuya answered levelly. “I do not consider them a bribe or a trade, but an investment. Both of you have proven yourselves of strong will and sound judgement over the past months, and should you desire it, there will be a place in the Shinigami Academy for you both.”

“Sh - Shinigami?” Haru echoed, his voice nearly failing him. “Us?”

“Hey.” Catching the boy’s attention, Renji jerked a thumb at his own chest. “Inuzuri here, remember?” 

“Yeah, but yer a freak,” came the bewildered response, and Renji, rather than be insulted, burst out laughing. 

Byakuya merely shook his head. “Renji is not the only citizen of high-district Rukongai to attain a notable position within the Gotei forces,” he reminded the two, his voice patient. “At the current rate, in fact, Rukon citizens and the unblooded will soon outnumber the nobility within the ranks.”

“An’ you wan’ us t’ join ‘em? Are you nuts?”

Raising his eyebrow again, Byakuya glanced over the boy’s head to meet Renji’s eyes. “I think he would do well in the Eleventh, don’t you?”

The kid who’d told Kuchiki Byakuya ‘screw you’ to his face? Hells, Zaraki would fall over himself to get him into the squad. “S’long as Yachiru doesn’t decide she wants t’ date him, he’d do fine,” Renji grinned, earning himself a twitch of the lips from his partner. 

“But we ain’t... we never... how are we...?” 

A faint huff and a flash of movement cut off Haru’s incoherent babble, as Ko stepped easily around her brother and reached into the box, delicately grasping the smaller blade and lifting it free. The pale green silk and matching leather of the scabbard gleamed softly in the sunlight, and the blade flashed bright as she drew it, testing the sword's weight and balance with a few cautious swings. 

When she lowered her hand again, she was blinking a bit too rapidly, her eyes just a little too bright. “Do you truly believe we could become Shinigami?” she asked simply, her eyes fixing on Byakuya’s, even though her fingers began gently caressing the flat of the blade.

“Yes,” Byakuya answered steadily. “Both of you have the reiatsu potential to become, not merely Shinigami, but powerful Shinigami. It would be a tremendous waste to allow your power to remain untapped.”

There was another moment of silence between them, Haru in bewildered shock, Byakuya and Renji waiting with various degrees of patience, before Ko quietly wiped the finger-marks from the blade on her yukata and quietly sheathed the blade again before tying it to her sash. 

“Very well,” she said simply, and Haru shook his head at her in disbelief.

“Jus’ like that, you’re gonna go? Take their word an’ just walk off to Seireitei like ya don’t care anymore? How do you know they ain’t lyin’?”

“They’re not lying,” she answered levelly. “They haven’t lied to us from the start, Haru, you know that. And yes, I am going to take their word and try to become a Shinigami, and so are you! Don’t try to deny that it’s exactly what you’ve been hoping for, ever since they told you that Michi’s words were lies!”

“You ain’t -”

“I’m not blind and I’m not stupid! Unlike you, who make a point of being both!”

Haru stared at her for another furious moment before giving a snarled sigh of wordless exasperation, storming forward and seizing the blue-hilted katana from the box.

_________________________________________________________________

An hour and a half later, after Renji and Byakuya had returned to Seireitei - Byakuya immediately heading for the Academy to organize sponsorship papers, then back to the Sixth to find a willing kendo teacher for the pair - Renji settled himself in a handsomely wrought-iron chair on a stone terrace, outside a popular restaurant near the Thirteenth Division’s headquarters. He had a lunch date to meet, who was due.... ah, now!

His eyes steady on the entrance to the pavilion, Renji grinned as he spotted Rukia padding her way through the open archway, Kotetsu Kiyone trotting along in her wake. The little third seat had attached herself to Rukia as soon as Rukia’s news was announced, turning the once-constant contest between herself and Kotsubaki Sentarou of ‘who can serve Ukitake-taichou better?’ into ‘who can serve their officer better?’ Neither Rukia nor Sentarou had been particularly overjoyed with the change, despite the fact that Ukitake seemed to be enjoying the newfound peace of having only one of his thirds dancing constant attendance on him. 

Although, Renji thought, biting back his grin as he waved briefly to the two women, it was probably for the best all around that Rukia had someone to attend her needs, something that was getting harder and harder for her to do. And with good reason, Renji added mentally, watching the once-tiny Lieutenant waddle her way between the tables. 

Following the one-upmanship tradition of the Karakura Team, Rukia had waited until Chad and Tatsuki’s wedding - a quiet affair, attended by no more people than had been at Uryuu and Orihime’s - to announce to everyone, Ichigo included, that she was two months pregnant. 

The only thing that had saved Ichigo from passing out had been Isshin stuffing a handful of ice cubes down the back of his son’s shirt. Unfortunately for Ichigo, not even ice could help him a month later, when Unohana announced after her initial scans that Rukia was in fact bearing twins.

Renji had thought it was hilarious that the savior of the Soul Society fainted dead away upon learning he would soon have two children. Byakuya, equally amused but unwilling to show it, had made a few cutting remarks about Ichigo’s strength of will once the young man woke up, and had promptly been invited to the sparring grounds in response. The invitation had been calmly rejected with the suggestion that Ichigo begin saving his strength now, for he would doubtlessly need it when his children arrived.

Which had, of course, prompted Ichigo to faint a second time, and Byakuya to be summarily ejected from the room by a distinctly unamused Unohana.

Although Rukia wasn’t quite six months pregnant now, she already looked about ready to pop - due, probably in equal parts, to the fact that stuffing two children into her tiny body was bound to cause a few changes, and the fact that Kiyone was stuffing food into her to at every given opportunity, apparently terrified of either the unborn children or their mother being undernourished. Which was not particularly likely, given that the Kuchiki manor’s entire staff was at her beck and call and Unohana herself was overseeing the pregnancy....

Rukia dropped into the seat across from him with a grunt, and Renji had to fight down the urge to snicker. After checking - twice - to make sure Rukia was comfortable, Kiyone whisked herself off to the counter to give her Lieutenant’s order, then waited impatiently, toe tapping, as the cooks set to work.

Rukia waited until Kiyone’s eyes were diverted, then dropped her head against the table with a resounding thud.

“Uugh.”

“Oh, come on,” Renji snickered, pouring her a cup of tea from the pot already steaming on the table. “It can’t be that bad.”

“You,” Rukia gritted, still nose-down on the table, “are not attempting to manage a Division while dragging around an extra half your body weight.”

“Only an extra half?” he teased, and easily ducked the fist that swiped at his head. Truth be told, Rukia probably had gained more than half her previous body weight, but then again, she’d always been friggin’ tiny, and Ichigo was... well, not. Not anymore, anyway. By the time he’d been seventeen he’d been taller than Byakuya, and he hadn’t stopped growing until he was an inch shy of Renji’s height. 

It made Renji wonder, a bit, how the kids were going to turn out. Both Isshin and Kaien had been tall and solidly-built, and Ichigo wasn’t exactly a stick figure himself, but both Karin and Yuzu had stayed reasonably small. That was probably their mother’s influence, although Renji had never dared bring up the subject with either of the Kurosaki men. 

One thing was for sure, though - the kids were going to be scary powerful. Rukia wasn’t exactly a slouch - Senbonzakura had been mumbling something about Sode no Shirayuki preparing to urge Rukia into Bankai training after the children were born - and Ichigo....

The last time Renji had tasted the young Visored’s power, he’d realized with a jolt of disbelief that Ichigo’s strength easily eclipsed that of Yamamoto himself. The blood of the Spirit King was telling itself. 

“Here you go, Rukia-fukutaichou!” sang out Kiyone, disrupting Renji’s increasingly humming thoughts. The tray of food - a bowl of noodles, another of teriyaki chicken, two skewers of grilled vegetables, and a plate heaping with dango dumplings for dessert - was deposited in front of the Lieutenant, and Kiyone managed to disappear before Rukia could object to the volume of food. 

Wordlessly, Renji pulled over the stack of clean, empty bowls he had brought to the table before Rukia’s arrival, and began dividing the bounty in half. 

“She means well, you know,” he remarked after a minute, sliding the much-reduced bowls back to Rukia’s side of the table. 

“I know she does,” came the answering sigh. “It’s just... aggravating. Nobility or not, I’m not used to being treated like something... something _fragile!”_

“Seireitei doesn’t see a whole lotta births,” Renji reminded her, not that he really needed to. “You’re gonna have to put up with a bit of... what’s the word? Cosseting?”

“Nii-sama working on your vocabulary again?” she asked dryly, and Renji mock-scowled at her in response. 

“Ah, shaddup. How’re your duties gettin’ along lately?”

A snort. “Fortunately, Kiyone trains well, too. I can still give orders at drill and do most of the desk-work, although I think Ukitake finds himself at a bit of a loss without all the paperwork dumped on him.”

“Ah, I’m sure Kyouraku would be happy to find a way to take up his time,” Renji snickered, earning himself a swat on the arm and a half-stifled grin. 

Lunch concluded in due course, and Renji collected their bowls and sat back as he watched the very pregnant Lieutenant of the Thirteenth toddle her way back to work. 

If nothing else, the next few decades at the Academy were going to be very, very interesting.

__________________________________________________________________

With one of the green packs of the Fourth Division over his shoulder, nobody thought to question Tsutomu’s presence outside the Twelfth, as long as the broom in his hands kept up a steady motion. 

He did not have very long to wait; the indecent creature so foolishly given rank of Lieutenant of the Tenth was gone for less than an hour, no doubt to an assignation with that treasonous snake, Ichimaru. It was certainly enough time for him to clear the dust from the stones surrounding the building, though not so long that the guards standing outside the doors thought to question him.

When the woman reemerged, breasts exposed like the indecent whore she was, it didn’t rouse suspicion when he quietly finished his sweeping and drifted off. As ever, nobody took particular note of him as he slid away from the Twelfth, ducking through alleyways and dark corners, discarding the broom and the supply pack along the way. 

Eventually, he slipped from the walls of Seireitei and leapt to Shunpo, crossing through the districts of Rukongai with no thought but a brief wave of disgust, and continuing on until he reached the small building where his Master was forced to make his home, after having been ejected from the noble manor where he had once resided.

The servant let him in, as ever, and Tsutomu dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forward until he felt himself within his Master’s gaze.

“Report,” ordered the voice, dark and velvet-smooth, and Tsutomu nodded, bowing until his forehead brushed the floor.

“Yes, Masa-sama. The woman who holds the rank of Lieutenant in the Tenth Division, Matsumoto Rangiku, entered the Twelfth Division, which is known to have a Senkaimon leading directly to Ichimaru’s residence in the Living Realm, two hours ago. She returned after an hour and left in the direction of her assigned Division.”

“So then,” his Master purred, sounding almost... amused? “Ichimaru know nows of his daughter... I believe it is time to proceed, Tsutomu.”

“Sir?”

“A message to the one who betrayed the cause, I think. The girl is no longer at the ward-house, but a message may still be sent. Act tonight.”

“Yes, sir,” Tsutomu answered quickly, and bowed again, the wooden floor rough against the skin of his brow, before backing away on his hands and knees, carefully inching his way out the door.

Watching his agent leave, Kuchiki Masa smiled.


End file.
